“Have a cigarette,” said
Grant to Furneaux, when the blinds were drawn, a lamp
lighted, and the sherry dispensed.
“Thank you.”
The self-invited guest took one.
He sniffed it, broke the paper wrapping, and crumbled
some of the tobacco between finger and thumb.
“Ah, those Greeks!” he
said sadly. “They simply can’t go
straight. This brand of Turk used to be made
of a tobacco grown on a slope above Salonica.
A strip of sun-baked soil built up a reputation which
is now being bartered for filthy lucre by the use
of Egyptian ‘fillings.’”
“You’re a connoisseur,
Mr. Hawknose try these,” said Hart,
proffering a case, from which the detective drew a
cigarette, throwing the other one aside.
“Why ’Hawknose’?” he inquired.
“A blend. First syllable
of Hawkshaw and second of Furneaux the latter
Anglicized, of course.”
“And vulgarized.”
“You prefer Furshaw, perhaps?”
“Either effort is feeble for
a man who can write about South America, and be lucid.
Do you smoke this stuff, may I ask?” While talking,
he had smelt and destroyed the second cigarette.
“If it’s a fair question, what the devil
do you smoke?” cried Hart.
“Nothing. I’m a non-smoker.
My profession demands a clear intellect, not a brain
atrophied by nicotine.”
“Piffle! Carlyle and Bismarck were smokers.”
“Who reads Carlyle now-a-days?
And what modern German pays heed to Bismarck’s
dogmas? Look at that pipe of yours. It was
once a pure ivory white. Now it is black soiled
by tobacco juice. Your lungs are slowly emulating
it, and your wits will cloud in time. Read Tolstoi,
Mr. Hart. He will teach you how nicotine deadens
the conscience.”
“At last I know why I smoke
like a Thames tug,” laughed Hart, “but
I’m blest if I can understand why you
make such a study of the vile weed.”
“Most criminals are addicted
to the habit. I classify them by their brand
of tobacco. For instance, a clever forger would
never descend to thick twist, while a swell mobsman
would turn with horror from a woodbine.”
Minnie entered, and nodded, whereupon
Grant led the others upstairs to wash. From the
bathroom he looked out over a darkening landscape.
Doris’s dormer window was open. She was
leaning on the sill, but he could not tell whether
or not her eyes were turned his way. Her attitude
was pensive, disconsolate, curiously forlorn for a
girl normally high-spirited. He was on the point
of signaling to her when he remembered Furneaux’s
presence. There was something impish, almost diabolically
clever, in that little man’s characteristics
which induced wariness.
The dinner was a marvel, considering
the short notice given to the cook. Luckily,
Mrs. Bates, a loyal soul, had resolved to tempt her
employer’s appetite that evening. Village
gossip had it that the police were about to arrest
him, and she was determined he should enjoy at least
one good meal before being haled to prison. Hence,
the materials were present. The rest was a matter
of quantities, and Sussex seldom stints itself in
that respect.
The chatter round the table was light
and amusing. The three were well matched conversationally.
Furneaux evidently held the opinion once expressed
by a notable Walrus that the time had come
To talk of many things:
Of shots and ships and sealing-wax
Of cabbages and kings.
He was in excellent form, and the
others played up to him. Hart’s slow drawl
was ever trenchant and witty, and Grant forgot his
woes in congenial company. As for the mercurial
detective himself, it might be said of him as of the
school-master of Auburn:
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.
It was he who dropped them with a
bounce from the realm of fancy to the unpleasing region
of ugly fact. No sooner had Minnie cleared the
table, and brought in the coffee, than he whisked
around on Grant as though hitherto he had been only
awaiting an opportunity of scarifying him.
“Now,” he said, propping
an elbow on the table, and supporting his chin on
a clenched fist, “the embargo is off the Steynholme
affair. You didn’t kill Adelaide Melhuish,
Mr. Grant. Who did?”
“I wish I could tell you,” was the emphatic
answer.
“Do you suspect anybody?
You needn’t fear the libel law in confiding your
secret thought to me, and I assume that Mr. Hart is
trustworthy where his friends are concerned?”
“Why that unkind differentiating
clause, my pocket Vidocq?” put in Hart.
“Because two Kings and a baker’s
dozen of Presidents have, at various times, sent most
unflattering reports to this country about you.”
“I must have annoyed ’em most damnably.”
“You had. I congratulate
you, but Heaven only knows where I may convoy you
some day on an extradition warrant....Proceed, Mr.
Grant.”
“I assure you, on my honor,
that the only reasonable suggestion I can make is
that put forward by my gardener to-day,” said
Grant. “He thinks that the murder must
have been committed by a lunatic. I can offer
no other hypothesis.”
“Your gardener may be right.
But what lunatic, barring yourself and the horse-coper,
Elkin, is in love with Doris Martin?”
Like Elkin the previous night, Grant
struck the table till things rattled.
“Keep her name out of it,”
he cried fiercely. “You are a man of the
world, not a suspicious idiot of the Robinson type.
You heard to-day the full and true explanation of
her presence here on Monday night. It was a sheer
accident. Why harp on Doris Martin rather than
any member of the Bates family?”
“Who, may I ask, is Doris Martin?” put
in Hart.
“The Steynholme postmaster’s
daughter,” said Furneaux. “A remarkably
pretty and intelligent girl. If her father was
a peer she would be the belle of a London season.
As it is, her good looks seem to have put a maggot
in more than one nut in this village.”
Hart waved the negro’s head in the air.
“The lunatic theory for mine,”
he declared. “If one woman’s lovely
face could bring a thousand ships to Ilion, why should
not another’s drive men to madness in Steynholme?”
“Well phrased, sir,” cackled
Furneaux delightedly. “I’ll wangle
that in on a respected colleague of mine, who is a
whale at deducing a proposition from given premises,
but cannot induce a general fact from particular instances
to save his life ... Now, stifle your romantic
frenzy, Mr. Grant, and listen to me. If you were
minded to instruct me in the art of writing good English,
I would sit at your feet an attentive disciple.
When I, Furneaux, of the ‘Yard,’ lay down
a first principle in the investigation of crime, I
expect deference on your part. I tell you unhesitatingly
that if Doris Martin didn’t exist, Adelaide Melhuish
would be alive now. That, as a thesis, is nearly
as certain a thing as that the sun will rise to-morrow.
I go farther, and hazard the guess, not the fixed
belief, though my guesses are usually borne out by
events, that if Doris Martin had not been in this
garden at half past ten on Monday night, Adelaide
Melhuish would not have been killed some twenty minutes
later. It is useless for you to fume and rage
in vain effort to disprove either of these presumptive
facts. You are simply beating the air. This
mystery centers in and around the postmaster’s
daughter. Come, now, you are a reasonable person.
Admit the cold, hard truth, and then give play to
your fancy.”
“Sir,” said Hart, brandishing
his pipe again, “I suggest that you and I, here
and now, form a mutual admiration society.”
“It is a cruel and bitter thing
that an innocent girl should be dragged into association
with a foul crime,” said Grant stubbornly.
“I am not disputing the force of your acumen,
Mr. Furneaux. My only desire is to shield the
good name of a very charming young lady.”
“What’s done can’t
be undone,” countered the detective, well knowing
that Grant confessed himself beaten.
“But what is all the bother
about? You heard from Miss Martin’s own
lips absolutely the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth. Put her in the witness-box, and what more
can she tell you?”
“I am not worrying about her
appearance in the witness-box,” said Furneaux
dryly. “Long before that stage is reached
I shall be hunting a star burglar, or, perhaps, looking
into the Foreign Office dossier of our worthy
friend here, as to-day’s papers hint at trouble
in Venezuela. No, sir. The county police
will get all the credit. P.C. Robinson will
be swanking about then, telling the yokels what he
did. I, with Olympic nod, say, ‘There’s
your man!’ and the handcuffs’ brigade do
the rest. So far as I can foresee, Miss Martin’s
name may be spared any undue prominence in this inquiry.
I go even farther, and promise that anything I can
do in that way shall be done.”
“That is very kind and considerate
of you,” said Grant gratefully.
“Don’t halloo till you’re
out of the wood.” said Furneaux, sitting back
suddenly and nursing his left knee with clasped hands.
“I can’t control other people’s
actions, you know. What I insist on to-night is
that you shall envisage this affair in its proper
light. We have a long way to travel before counsel
rises with his smug ’May it please you, me lud,
and gentlemen of the jury.’ But, having
persuaded you to agree that, willy nilly, Miss Doris
is the hub of our little universe for the hour, I
now swear you and this fire-eater in as assistants.
There must be no more speeches, no punching of heads,
very little love-making, and that by order ”
“Has the postmaster’s
daughter a delectable sister, O Liliputian cop?”
demanded Hart.
“No. Two of ’em would
have caused a riot long since. Mr. Grant will
do all, and more than all, necessary in that direction.”
Grant leaned forward. He spoke very earnestly.
“I want you to believe me when
I tell you,” he said, “that I never gave
serious thought to the notion of marrying Miss Martin
until such a possibility was suggested last night
by that swab, Ingerman.”
“Ah, Ingerman! You kept
a record of what he said, I gather?”
“Yes, here it is.”
Grant rose, and went to a writing-desk
with nests of drawers which stood against the wall
on the left of the door. He never used it for
its primary purpose. When the table was laid
for meals, Minnie or her mother had orders to remove
all papers and books to the top of the desk. The
house contained no other living-room of size.
The hall was spacious; a smoking den next the dining-room
had degenerated into a receptacle of guns, fishing-rods,
golf-clubs, Alpenstocks, skis and other such sporting
accessories. The remainder of the ground-floor
accommodation was given up to the Bateses.
Unlocking a drawer, Grant produced
a notebook, which he handed to Furneaux. The
detective laid it on the table. He was sitting
with his back to the large window. Hart faced
him. Grant’s chair was between the two.
“By the way, as you’re
on your feet, Mr. Grant,” said Furneaux, “you
might just show me exactly where you were standing
when you saw the face at the window.”
“For the love of Mike, what’s
this?” gurgled Hart. “’The face at
the window’; ‘the postmaster’s daughter.’
How many more catchy cross-heads will you bring into
the story?”
“Poor Adelaide Melhuish undoubtedly
came here on Monday night and looked in at me while
I was at work,” said Grant sadly. “You
know the history of my calf love three years ago,
Wally.”
“Shall I ever forget it?
You bored me stiff about it. Then, when the crash
came, you walked me off my legs in the Upper Engadine.
Ugh! That night on the Forno glacier. It
gives me a chill to think of it now. Furneaux,
pass the port. Your name is wrongly spelt.
It should be fourneau, not Furneaux. A little
oven. Hot stuff. Got me?”
“My dear Hart, you flatter
me,” retorted the detective instantly.
“How long am I to pose here?” snapped
Grant.
“Sorry,” said Furneaux.
“These interruptions are banal. Is that
where you were?”
“Yes. I had my hand outstretched
for a book. It’s dark in this corner.
When I want to find a book I light a candle, which
is always placed on the ledge of the window for the
purpose. The blind was not drawn that night.
It seldom is. I had the book in my hand, and had
found the required passage when I chanced to look at
the window and saw her face.”
“Do you mind reconstructing
the scene. This lamp was on the table, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
“Well, pull up the blind, light
your candle, and find the book. Act the whole
incident, in fact.”
Grant obeyed. He held the candlestick
until he had picked out the particular volume; then
he placed it in the recess of the window, and searched
through the pages of the book.
Furneaux bent forward so as to watch
the rehearsal and catch the effect of the light externally.
The hour was not so late as when Adelaide Melhuish,
or her ghost, gazed in through one of those narrow
panes, but the night was dark enough to lend the necessary
vraisemblance. Hart, deeply interested,
looked on with rapt, eager eyes. For a full minute
the tableau remained thus. Then, with a rapidity
born of many a close ’scape in wild lands, Hart
drew a revolver from a hip pocket, and fired at the
window.
He alone was in a position to see
through all parts of it. Grant was still thumbing
a small brown volume in the manner of one who knew
that a certain passage would be found therein but
was ignorant of its exact place in the text.
Furneaux, intent on his every movement, had only a
side-long view of the window, which, it will be remembered,
formed a tiny rectangle in a thick wall.
The revolver was a heavy-caliber weapon,
and the explosion blew out the lamp. The flame
of the candle flickered, owing either to the passage
of the bullet or the disturbance of the air.
But it burnt steadily again within the fifth part
of a second, and they all saw a starred hole in the
center pane of glass of the second tier from the bottom.
“What fool’s game are
you playing?” shrilled Furneaux, nevertheless
active as a wildcat in his spring to the French window,
there to snatch at the blind and turn the knob which
controlled a lever bolt.
“Laying another ghost one
with whiskers,” said Hart coolly. “I
got him, too, I think.”
“You must be mad, mad!”
shrieked the detective, tearing open the window, and
vanishing.
“For Heaven’s sake, Wally,
no more shooting!” cried Grant, running after
Furneaux.
Minnie and her mother appeared at
the dining-room door. Finding the place in semi-obscurity,
and reeking with gunpowder, they screamed loudly.
“You Steynholme folk are all
on the jump,” said Hart. “Cheer up,
fair dames! Thunder relieves the atmosphere,
you know, and one live cartridge is often more effective
than an ocean of talk.”
“Bub-bub-but who’s shot, sir?” gasped
Minnie.
“A ghost, a most scoundrelly
apparition, with fearsome eyes, offensive whiskers,
and a hat which is a base copy of mine.”
“Owd Ben!” sighed Mrs.
Bates, collapsing straightway in a faint.
Luckily, Minnie caught her mother
and broke her fall, because the housekeeper was large
and solid, and might have been seriously injured otherwise.
Hart was distressed by this development, but, being
eminently a ready person in an emergency, he rose
to the occasion by extracting the empty case from
the revolver, and holding it to the poor woman’s
nostrils, while supporting her with an arm and a knee.
“This is far more effective
than burnt brown paper, Minnie,” he said.
“Now, don’t get excited, but mix some brandy
and water, and we’ll have your mother telling
us who Owd Ben is, or was, before Hawk-eye comes back
to disturb us. Judging by the noises I hear, he’s
busy outside.”
“That’s father!” shrieked Minnie
hysterically.
“Good Lord! Has your father ”
For an instant, Hart was nearly alarmed,
but Grant’s voice came authoritatively:
“It’s all right, Bates. Let go, I
tell you!”
“Phew!” said Hart.
“I was on the point of confusing your respected
dad with Owd Ben ... That’s it, ma!
Sniff hard! As a cook you’re worth your
weight in gold, which is some cook.”
Meanwhile, Furneaux, seeing that no
dead body was stretched on the strip of grass beneath
the window, dashed into the shrubbery to the right,
and was clutched in a mighty embrace by an older but
much more powerful man in Bates, who had hurried from
the front of the house on hearing the pistol-shot.
Most fortunately, the gardener, deeming his vigil a
needless one, had not armed himself with a stick,
or the consequences might have been grave. As
it was, no one except Hart had been vouchsafed sight
or sound of the latest specter, which, however, had
left a very convincing souvenir of its visit in the
shape of a soft felt hat with two bullet holes through
the crown.
Furneaux, quivering with silent wrath,
soon abandoned the search when this piece de conviction
was found at the root of the Dorothy Perkins rose-tree.
Seeing the lamp relighted, he peremptorily bade Grant
and Bates come in with him. He closed the window,
adjusted the blind again, and poured generous measures
of port wine into two glasses. Handing one to
Bates, he took the other himself.
“Friend,” he said, “some
men have fame thrust upon them, but you have achieved
it. To-night you pierced the heel of Achilles.
Here’s to you!”
“I dunno wot ’ee’s
saying mister, but ’good health’,”
said Bates, swigging the wine with gusto.
“Now, for your master’s
sake, not a word to a soul about this hubbub.”
“Right you are, sir! But
that there pryin’ Robinson wur on t’ bridge
five minutes since. And, by gum, here he is!”
A determined knock and ring came at
the front door. Minnie, helped by Hart, had just
escorted Mrs. Bates to the kitchen.
“Let me go!” said
Furneaux, darting out into the hall. He opened
the door, and thrust his face into the police-constable’s,
startling the latter considerably. Before Robinson
could utter a syllable, the detective hissed a question.
“Did anyone cross the bridge after that shot
was fired?”
“Nun No, sir,” stuttered the
other.
“You saw no one running along the road?”
“Saw nothing, sir.”
“Very well. Glad to find
you’re on the job. Don’t let on you
met me here. Good-night!”
Mighty is Scotland Yard with the provincial
police. Robinson was back on his self-imposed
beat before he well realized that he knew neither why
nor by whom nor by what sort of weapon the commotion
had been created. But he was quite sure the noise
came from the garden front of Mr. Grant’s house.
“That little hop-o’-me-thumb
thinks he’s smart, dam smart,” he communed
angrily, “but I’ve taken a line of me own,
an’ I’ll stick to it, though the Yard
sends down twenty men!”
He heard footsteps coming down a paved
footpath which ran like a white riband through the
cobble-beaded width of the high-street, and withdrew
swiftly to the shelter of a disused tannery adjoining
the village end of the bridge. A cloaked female
figure sped past. Though the night was rather
dark for June, he had no difficulty in recognizing
Doris Martin’s graceful movements. No other
girl in Steynholme walked like her. She was slim
enough to dispense with tight corsets, and tall enough
to wear low-heeled shoes, nor did she need to pinch
her toes in order to gain the semblance of small feet.
After her went Robinson, keyed to
exultation by this outcome of his watchfulness.
She was going to The Hollies, of course. The road
led to Knoleworth, and no young woman of her age in
the village would dream of taking a lonely walk in
the country at ten o’clock at night.
For a man of his height and somewhat
ponderous build, the policeman followed with real
stealth. Thus, when she turned in at the gate,
he was there by the time she had reached the front
door. He heard her pull the bell. Curiously
enough, to his thinking, Furneaux again appeared.
“Is Mr. Grant at home?” he heard Doris
say.
“Yes. Will you come in?” replied
the detective.
“Is he is all well here?”
“Quite, I assure you. But
do come in. I’ll escort you home.
I’m going to the inn in five minutes.”
Doris, after hesitating a little, entered.
Robinson crept on tiptoe over a stretch
of gravel, and took to the shrubbery. It was
high time, he thought, that the local constabulary
learnt what was going on in that abode of mystery.