Chapter Three.
Describes a Man and a Mystery
“It’s probably some poor beggar who’s committed suicide,” I remarked, in order to allay Rainer’s suspicions, if he had noticed the change in our countenances when he made his startling announcement.
“He’s badly-dressed, Harris says. Perhaps he’s a tramp,” remarked the servant.
“Perhaps so. We want nothing more, Rainer, to-night,” I added.
“Very good, sir,” and the man bowed and withdrew, closing the door after him.
“What shall we do?” whispered Eric, quickly, his face pale beneath the sun-tan.
I stood staring at my friend, unable to utter a word.
Was that Sybil’s secret – the secret that she had been so very near revealing to me? I recollected those strange words of hers, “You would hate me!” Yes, her secret was a guilty one.
“Do?” I echoed at last in a low whisper, fearing Rainer might be listening. “Why, we must make our own inquiries before those local busybodies of police step in and bungle the affair. She must be saved – don’t you agree?”
“Yes. At all costs we must save her,” he cried quickly. “Let’s go out and see who the fellow is.”
“Not yet. Wait for half an hour or so, until they’re all gone to bed. The servants’ hall is all in a flutter, it seems, and the maids will be about frightened and whispering. If we are to get away unseen we must slip out of yonder window. All the doors are closed now, and the dogs are loose in the courtyard.”
“You’re right, old fellow. We must wait a bit,” he agreed. “But what’s your private opinion of the affair?”
“I have none,” was my blank reply. “Until I have some proof, I suspect nobody.”
“Quite so. Let’s leave Tibbie entirely out of the question. Remember, not a word to anyone of what I’ve told you, for I’m the principal witness against her. Think, if they called me. My evidence would condemn her!”
“I regard all that you’ve told me, Eric, as unsaid,” I responded. “Tibbie is my friend.”
“But you don’t think I’ve lied, do you?” he asked quickly, not grasping my meaning.
“Of course not. Why should you? We know each other too well to make false charges against our friends,” I answered. “It is a mystery – a complete mystery.”
“Absolutely. I was struck dumb when I discovered her in the arms of the fellow. I couldn’t really believe my own eyes.” Then, after a pause, he asked in a lower tone, “What secret of hers did he hold, I wonder?”
“Ah! what indeed.”
“To me, it is very evident that she met the fellow at that lonely spot under compulsion. She may have reciprocated his affection at one time, but her manner was inert and unresponsive. She allowed him to caress her because she was in deadly fear – I’m absolutely certain of that.”
“Then she didn’t betray any love for him?”
“None whatever. In his reproaches, however, he reminded her of how she had once loved him and allowed him to think that he might aspire to her hand. He reproached her with cruelty and double-dealing, saying that she had betrayed him to his enemies, and that now, in return, he would reveal to the world her dark and terrible secret. This announcement electrified her. Until that moment she apparently had no idea of her peril, but instantly she saw that he held her future entirely in his hands – and – well, that’s all.”
I stood upon the hearthrug, my hands deep in my trouser-pockets, my back to the high, old stone overmantel that bore emblazoned the arms of the Scarcliffs, and remained silent. What could I say? What could I think of the woman who was in her room somewhere above in that great old mansion – the woman who was, no doubt, still awake in terror of the morrow?
The stable clock clanged out half-past two, and presently Eric stepped on tip-toe to the door, opened it and looked down the great hall, dark, gloomy and mysterious, with its stands of armour, its tattered banners and its old carved furniture of centuries ago.
Across the hall he crept until lost in the darkness, and a few minutes later returned carrying two hats, and saying that all was quiet in the servants’ hall, and that everybody had gone to bed.
Then we closed the door, took a wooden chair to the window, opened it, and scrambled through, dropping noiselessly down upon the grass beyond.
We closed the old window behind us lest the night-watchman should discover it open and raise an alarm, and then started off together straight across the park, in the direction of the Long Avenue that led away for a mile and a half down to the village.
The night was bright and starlit, but over the grass hung a heavy white mist, especially in the hollows.
For a long time neither of us spoke, but presently, as we sped briskly along, Eric said, —
“We must pretend that Rainer has aroused our curiosity, otherwise the villagers will think our visit strange at this hour. Our first object must be to establish the fellow’s identity. At present we know his name to be Charles – and that’s all.”
With this I agreed, and presently we arrived at the fine old Tudor gate-house, and passed out from the park into the broad highway that ran over Bow Hill to Chichester. Half a mile along the road we entered the quaint, peaceful little village of East Marden, with its ancient church and long row of comfortable cottages, now, however, in darkness. Five miles from the railway, it still preserved its rural traditions. There was no inn, and consequently little distress; the village retired early and rose with the sun, a pleasant little place prosperous under the proprietorship of the Scarcliffs.
Along the deserted little street we searched until we came to the constable’s cottage, in the window of which a light was burning, and knocking at the door it was opened by Mr Booth, as the villagers called him, a big, round-faced officer in constabulary uniform.
“Oh! beg pardon, gentlemen!” he exclaimed, recognising us. “I thought it were Dr Richards. They’ve telephoned from the house to call him. He ought to be here by now.”
“What’s the matter, Booth? What has happened?” I asked, stepping into his clean little parlour where his wife greeted us with a curtsey. “Rainer came to us and said that somebody had been found dead, so we came out to hear all about it.”
“Yes, sir, that’s right. John Harris found him some hours ago; but I was out on my beat across at Elsted, and they ’ad to fetch me. I’ve been up to Charlton Wood and seen ’im, but I’ve left ’im there till the gov’nor comes. We’ve strict orders never to move a body without the superintendent sees it first.”
“But tell us all about it,” I urged. “Who’s the man, and what has happened?”
“Well, John Harris was goin’ ’is round as usual, when ’is dog found a man lyin’ just inside the wood – stone dead. Shot in the chest. The sight, of course, gave ’im a fright, an’ he comes down here quick and informs my missis. She told him to keep it dark, as we didn’t want the whole village up there, an’ sent him up to the house to telephone to Midhurst to the divisional surgeon. Then they came out and found me.”
“You don’t recognise the dead man?” I asked with trepidation.
“No. ’E’s a stranger – maybe a tramp.”
“You haven’t searched him?”
“Not yet. I’m waiting for the doctor and the gov’nor. I’ve telephoned to him in Chichester, only ’e may be out on inspection-duty.”
“And meanwhile the body is up in the wood? Is anybody there with it?”
“No, sir. We think it better to leave it there alone, otherwise the news’ll spread and they’ll tread out whatever marks of a struggle there maybe there.” In an instant a serious thought occurred to me. Had the dead man on him any letter of Sybil’s or anything to connect her with him?
“Well,” I said a moment later in as unconcerned a tone as I could, “we’re interested to see who the poor fellow is. Therefore we’ll walk on up in the direction of the wood, and when Richards comes you’ll overtake us.”
“Very well, gentlemen,” was the constable’s reply. “But you won’t tell anyone yet, will you? And you won’t go into the wood and tread about? If there’s been murder committed, as there seems to have been, then we must find the guilty party,” he added seriously, this no doubt being the first really grave case he had ever had in all his eighteen years’ career.
“Of course not,” answered Eric. “We shall wait for you, as we don’t know where the body is.”
“Ah! I never thought o’ that,” was Booth’s reply. “All right, gentlemen, I’ll be after you as soon as the doctor comes. He’ll drive me on in his trap.” And we said good-night to Mrs Booth, a rather frail, hard-working little woman, and went once more out into the broad high road.
“We must act quickly. Come, hurry along,” I exclaimed, as soon as we were beyond the village. “We haven’t a second to spare.”
“Why?” asked Domville in some surprise.
“Didn’t you say that we must save Tibbie?” I asked. “Can’t you see her serious peril? The fellow may have on him some letter or something that may incriminate her. We must get there and search him before Booth brings the doctor. What fortune that the body has been left unattended.”
“But is it?” Eric queried. “Don’t you think that Harris has spread the news among the other keepers and one or other of them are lurking near out of curiosity? Wouldn’t it be infernally awkward for us if we were discovered rifling the dead man’s pockets?”
“We must risk everything – for Tibbie’s sake – for the sake of the family,” I declared decisively, and impelled by my words he hurried along at my side.
“You have given it as your opinion that they were once lovers,” I continued. “Therefore, if he had come there to blackmail her, what more natural than that he should carry with him something by which to impress her with his power over her? At all costs, therefore, we must try and satisfy ourselves that there is nothing to incriminate her.”
“Ah! my dear Wilfrid,” he sighed. “It is really terrible – too terrible.”
“This is not the moment to discuss the affair. We must act,” I urged, and together we got over a gate and turned into a grass field which was a shorter cut to the wood.
“This way,” my friend directed. “The spot is up at that corner,” pointing away up the hill, where the wood loomed darkly against the sky.
Truth to tell, I shared Eric’s fear that Harris or one of his sons might be lurking in the neighbourhood, yet I said nothing. My only thought was for the woman who had been my friend, my playmate, the dainty love of my early youth. She might be all that her enemies said of her, yet for her mother’s sake, for Jack’s sake, I meant – if possible – to save her.
Keeping in the shadow of the hedgerows and walls, I allowed my companion to direct my footsteps. With his long practice in those boundless forests of eternal night in Equatorial Africa, he had learnt how to creep along with scarce a sound. He motioned to me to be silent, and presently we crossed the big turnip field and entered the thicket at the point where he had entered it that afternoon.
“This will destroy my track,” he whispered. “Tread always on your toes.”
His example I followed, malting my way through the brambles and undergrowth until, of a sudden, we came out into a small open space beneath some big trees on the edge of the wood itself, and there upon the ground I saw something lying. In the darkness I could not distinguish what it was, but Eric advanced slowly, and bending, turned to me, saying in a low whisper, —
“Here it is. But how can we search him without a light? If we strike a match it can be seen by anyone coming up the hill.”
I knelt at his side and ran my hands over the cold corpse. Ah! it was a gruesome moment. My eager fingers unbuttoned his jacket that was wet and clammy with blood, and quickly I put my fingers in his inner pocket. Yes! there were papers there. Quick as thought I thrust them into my own pocket, and then in the darkness searched his clothes thoroughly. In his hip-pocket I felt a small leather wallet or card-case, and in his left-hand trousers pocket was a pen-knife, both of which I secured; while Eric, making another search of his waistcoat, discovered an inner pocket which contained some paper or other, which he handed to me.
To search a dead man in the darkness is not the easiest thing, and even though we had gone through his pockets, yet I was not satisfied.
My friend urged me to creep away and go back to meet Booth, but I hesitated. I wanted a light in order to satisfy myself thoroughly that I had overlooked nothing, and I told him so.
In a moment he threw off his jacket, and covering the prostrate figure with it, said, “Strike a match underneath. This will hide the light.”
I did so, and the fickle flame from the wax vesta fell upon the hard white face, a face that in death bore a wild, desperate look that was truly horrifying.
The pockets were, however, my chief concern, and, striking match after match, I made a methodical examination, finding a screwed-up piece of paper, the receipt for a registered letter. In feeling within his vest my hand touched something hard beneath his shirt.
I felt again. Yes, there was something next his skin. Therefore I carefully opened his saturated shirt, and placing my hand within, drew out something about the size of a penny, a kind of medallion that he wore suspended around his neck by a fine gold chain.
A quick twist broke the latter, and I secured both medallion and chain.
“Make haste!” cried my companion in quick alarm. “Lights are coming up the hill! It’s Richards’s dog-cart with Booth. Let’s fly. We must get back to the road, or they may suspect.”
“A moment!” I cried. “Let me adjust his clothes,” and with eager, nervous fingers I re-buttoned the dead man’s clothing, and carefully rearranged the body as we had found it.
Those moments were exciting ones, for already the trap was coming on at a brisk pace, the lights shining clear along the road, and we yet had two large fields to cross before reaching the point where it was necessary to meet the doctor and constable.
Eric slipped on his coat, and we scrambled through the undergrowth by the way we had come, and then under the shadow of the wall, tore on as quickly as our legs would carry us.
Just, however, as we got out of the turnip field, my companion turned to me, and gasped, —
“Look there – to the left! There’s someone over in that clump of bushes there. By Heaven! old fellow, we’ve been seen!”
“Are you sure?” I cried hoarsely, glancing at the same moment in the direction he had indicated.
“Certain. I saw the figure draw back as we passed. My eyes don’t deceive me in the dark – I’m used to it.”
“Then we’re betrayed!” I said breathlessly.
“Yes. That’s quite certain,” was his hard response. “We’ve been watched – just as I feared.”
Chapter Four.
Is Astounding
To halt would be to reveal our visit to the wood to the village constable, therefore we sprang across a stile, skirted the grass land, keeping beneath the high hawthorn hedge, and emerging into the roadway just as the lights of the gig came around the bend.
“Halloa! doctor!” I shouted, as he approached with the constable at his side, and the groom behind.
“Who’s that?” he inquired, peering into the darkness.
“Hughes – Wilfrid Hughes,” I answered, and a moment later he pulled up, and both Eric and I greeted him.
“We can go across the fields from here,” Booth remarked. Therefore they all three descended, and leaving the groom with the horse, we allowed ourselves to be guided by the constable to the spot where the body was lying.
“I hope, gentlemen, you haven’t been waitin’ long,” said Booth, addressing us, as he lit the hurricane lamp he had brought.
“Not at all,” declared Eric, quite unconcernedly, “but we’re naturally very anxious to ascertain who the poor fellow is.”
“From what Booth says, it seems a clear case of murder,” remarked Richards, the hard-working country practitioner.
“A mystery, evidently,” said Domville. “Has no weapon been found?”
“We haven’t searched yet, sir,” the constable replied. “We’ll have to wait till daylight.”
And so, our way lit by the officer’s lantern, we went on past the dump of bushes where my friend declared that some person was in hiding. Both of us glanced across eagerly, but all was quiet – not a leaf stirred.
Who was concealed there, I wondered? I knew Eric Domville too well to doubt that his practised eye had been deceived.
I longed to go forward and search, but that was entirely out of the question. Some unknown person had witnessed our visit to the body. Our actions had been watched.
Presently, when we reached the spot, and the light shone upon the prostrate man, I was enabled to obtain my first clear sight of him.
The face, white and waxen in death, bore a hard, terrible look in the eyes, an expression that caused me to shudder. It was the look of one who shrank in awe and horror from the great Unknown. His clothes, a suit of rough, cheap dark tweed, the vest of which bore a large dark stain, showed evidence of hard wear, frayed at the elbows and cuffs, his linen was not over clean, and his boots bore traces of long tramping.
His cloth golf-cap had fallen off, and lay near, disclosing that his close-cropped dark hair was somewhat curly, while his face was clean-shaven, and around his collar was a dark blue cravat tied in a bow.
“I wonder who he is?” remarked Booth, as he bent down, and, opening his vest, disclosed the small shot-wound.
“I wonder,” I echoed, at the same time feeling in my pocket the papers and other objects which no doubt would establish his identity. I longed to return to the house and examine them.
“Shot clean through the heart!” exclaimed Richards, kneeling upon the carpet of dead leaves and making as thorough an examination as the fickle light afforded. “He must have fallen and died almost instantly.”
“Could it have been suicide?” inquired Booth.
“I think not. Of course, he might have shot himself, but from the position of the wound I think not. Besides, where is the revolver?”
We looked about, but could not discover it, and at the same time Booth constantly urged upon us not to move about lest we might destroy any footmarks that would lead to a clue.
While Booth was searching the dead man’s pockets of course finding nothing, Eric noticed a light approaching up the road, and pointed it out.
“That’s the gov’nor on ’is bike,” declared the constable. “I left word with my missis to send ’im up ’ere. I’m glad ’e’s come.”
We awaited the arrival of the superintendent, a short, elderly, thick-set man in a dark suit, who spoke sharply to his officer, listened to the doctor’s opinion, and then proceeded to make a methodical examination for himself.
He held the lantern to the dead man’s face, and looked for some moments into his features.
“No. He’s a perfect stranger to me,” the officer declared. “Was there nothing in his pockets?”
“Only some money, sir – a shillin’ or two,” answered the village policeman.
“On tramp, no doubt,” and he examined the palms of both hands, feeling them with his fingers. “Not used to hard work – clean-shaven, too – done it to disguise himself probably. No razor?”
“No, sir.”
“Found the revolver?”
“No, sir.”
“Not searched yet, I suppose?”
“No, sir. I waited until you came, to hear your instructions.”
“Quite right. You’d better move him down to the village, and when it’s light we’ll search all around.” Then, turning to Richards, he added, “There’ll have to be an inquest, doctor. Shall we fix it for the day after to-morrow, at the Spread Eagle at Midhurst? Will that suit you?”
“Yes. I can make the post-mortem to-morrow,” Richards said, and thus it was arranged.
“It’s a mystery – murder without a doubt,” declared the superintendent a few minutes later, while chatting with the doctor. “How long has he been dead, do you think?”
“Eight or nine hours,” I should say.
“Then it was done about dusk, you think?”
“Most probably.”
“He was shot from the front, you notice, not in the back. Therefore, it seems quite evident that some secret meeting took place here before it grew dark. Bear that in mind, Booth, and make every inquiry to find out whether anybody was seen going over the fields.”
“His lordship and his friends were about the farms a-shootin’ all day,” the constable replied.
“Yes,” laughed Eric, “but we didn’t shoot with revolvers,” at which we all three laughed.
I admired my friend for his clever sally, for if anyone actually did see him crossing the turnips there would be no suspicion aroused that he had been witness of any meeting.
The police superintendent made a cursory examination of the surroundings by aid of the lantern, but saw nothing that led him to believe that a struggle had taken place; then eager to return and examine those papers I had in my pocket, we both bade the doctor and policeman good-night, and returned across the fields and along the drift skirting the park, scaling the wall, and so reaching the house by a much shorter route than by re-passing the village.
“I wonder who was in that thicket,” I said, as we walked down the hill, after leaving the scene of the tragedy.
“I saw something white, but whether it was a man’s shirt-front or a woman’s blouse I don’t know,” Eric replied. “Whoever it was may tell the police of our visit there, and we may find ourselves in a most awkward position. It wouldn’t be nice to be charged with trying to defeat the ends of justice, would it?”
“No,” I said, thinking deeply, and recognising the seriousness of the situation. “But how could we have acted otherwise? If we are to save Tibbie we must accept the risk.”
“It’s terrible – terrible,” he murmured. “I wonder who the fellow is?”
“Let’s get back. Come up to my room, and we’ll have a look through what we’ve found,” I said, and then we went on in silence until we managed to reopen the smoking-room window and creep in without attracting the attention of either the dogs or the night-watchman.
Eric mixed two stiff glasses of whisky, and we drank them. I confess that my hand trembled with excitement, while before me as I had walked through the night I saw that staring terror-stricken face – the face of the man who had looked into the Unknown and had been appalled.
Together we crept up to my room, first taking off our boots, as in order to reach the wing in which I was placed we had to pass Jack’s room, and also that of old Lady Scarcliff, who was, I knew, always nervous of burglars. Besides, we had no desire that it should be known that we had been out at that hour – otherwise Sybil might suspect.
Up the Long Gallery we went, past the grim row of armed knights so ghostly in the darkness, past the loudly-ticking old clock, past the deep window-seat wherein Sybil had so nearly betrayed her secret in the sunset hour, and on into my room.
Once within we locked the door, drew the portière to shut out the sound of our voices, and I took from my various pockets all that we had secured from the dead man.
It was a strange collection of papers, letters and various odds and ends, rendered gruesome by the stains of a man’s life-blood upon them.
They lay upon the table in the window and I scarce dared to touch them; stolen as they had been from that silent, staring corpse.
I switched on the table-lamp, and we drew chairs eagerly forward, so excited that neither of us spoke.
The first thing I took in my hand was the small circular medallion of gold with the thin chain which I had taken from the dead man’s neck. About the size of a penny it was, smooth and polished on either side. I turned it over in wonder, and as I did so noticed that although so thin it was really a locket, one of those which is sometimes worn by ladies upon a long chain.
With trembling fingers I inserted my thumb nail into the slit and prised it open.
Upon one side a small ivory miniature of the Honourable Sybil smiled mockingly at us, and on the other was engraved an inscription.
I put it down and took up a letter folded in half without an envelope, the paper of which was crumpled and blood-stained.
I quickly scanned over what was written there, Eric looking over my shoulder meanwhile.
What I learnt staggered me. It told us the awful truth.
We turned and faced each other, looking into each other’s eyes without uttering a word.
The problem was, we saw, far more intricate and amazing than we had ever dreamed.
Yes, there, spread before us, was the dead man’s secret!