CHAPTER XIII
THE VICAR’S STORY
It was by means of the Vicar that the story was carried a stage further. I had made the old man’s acquaintance soon after I first came to Cartordale and had conceived a great liking for the gentle, kindly old parson and his bustling, energetic, rather autocratic wife.
The Rev. Herbert Wickstead was an elderly man, with a thin, colourless face, short-sighted eyes and a scholarly stoop. As a preacher, he was not very much, for, though he did some hard thinking and was now and again original, he possessed very little gift for literary expression and none at all for oratory. Nor was he very much more successful in parochial work, though that did not greatly matter since his wife—Mrs. Vicar, as she was generally labelled—possessor of the quickest of tongues and the kindest of hearts, took the heaviest part of that burden upon her own shoulders.
I met him by the vicarage on the afternoon of the day following our visit to Thoyne’s house and when he asked me to go in and have some tea I accepted chiefly because I thought he, or at any rate Mrs. Vicar, might be able to tell me some of the things I wanted to know. You see, I was still very much of a stranger in Cartordale with only a vague and shadowy knowledge of its people. In some ways that may have been a gain though, generally speaking, it was a handicap. He began on one of the subjects uppermost in my mind almost as soon as we were seated at the table.
“I was very sorry to learn to-day that we are losing Mr. Thoyne,” the Vicar said, in his halting drawl.
He took off his spectacles and polished them with the corner of his handkerchief, peering mildly at the rest of us the while, though his remark had evidently been addressed to his wife.
“He very seldom came to church,” Mrs. Vicar snapped.
“No, not frequently,” the Vicar admitted, “not so frequently as I could have wished. But he was very generous—very. Any story of distress or need was very sure of a sympathetic hearing. I have dipped rather deeply into his purse more than once.”
“Who told you he was leaving?” his wife asked.
The Vicar selected a slice of bread-and-butter with great deliberation from the plate before him.
“I was sorry I had no opportunity of bidding him good-bye,” he went on, apparently ignoring his wife’s question though most likely he had not heard it. “True I saw him yesterday but I had no chance then. I was returning from a visit to Sarah Blooms—poor woman—”
“She died this morning,” his wife chimed in, a little snappily I thought, though that may have been because I was not quite used to her conversational style.
“Ah, yes—dear me! dear me!”
The Vicar relapsed into silence.
“You were telling us, sir—?” I ventured, after a pause.
“Yes, yes, of course, I was returning from my visit to Sarah Blooms and was passing the end of Pallitt’s Lane when Mr. Thoyne passed me in his motor-car. There was a lady with him, Miss Clevedon, I think, though I could not be very sure of that.”
“Were they alone in the car?” I asked.
“Oh, yes, as far as I could see, quite alone.”
“With Mr. Thoyne driving, perhaps?”
“Oh, no, they were in the body of the car. There was the chauffeur and another man on the front, a servant, I think.”
“You did not recognise the second man?”
“Well, no, to tell you the truth I did not take particular notice of him.”
It was at least level betting that the second man was Tulmin. But what interested me most was the fact of Kitty Clevedon’s presence in the car. It seemed to suggest that whatever was going on, she had a hand in it.
“I have heard their names coupled more than once—Mr. Thoyne and Miss Clevedon,” Mrs. Vicar declared.
“Is that so?” the Vicar queried. “I had not heard it. But it would be a very suitable match too. He has money and physical strength and she has youth and beauty. That should make an ideal combination. They seemed very happy and comfortable—I noticed that. As they passed me he was talking to her, but they both saw me. Thoyne nodded to me as they went past.”
“And how do you know he’s gone for good?” Mrs. Vicar demanded.
“Oh, yes, it was Miss Kitty who told me that. I met her again an hour or two later and I asked her if she thought Mr. Thoyne would take the chair next Wednesday. She said he couldn’t because he had left Cartordale and had given up his house. She said, I think, that he was going abroad—”
“On his yacht, I expect,” Mrs. Vicar chimed in.
“Lucky man!” I interjected. “So he possesses a yacht, does he?”
“A lovely vessel,” Mrs. Vicar replied, with enthusiasm. “I haven’t seen it, but he gave us a lecture with limelight views, ‘Round the World by Steam’ he called it, and he showed us a lot of pictures of his yacht. The Sunrise its name is, and he says he gave it that name because he uses it to go where the sun is—one of the privileges of wealth, Mr. Holt,” she added, with a sigh.
“Had Mr. Thoyne been long in Cartordale?” I asked.
“Oh, well, it would be about two years, or, let me see, perhaps a little longer,” Mrs. Vicar replied. “He fought in the war, you know, and was wounded. He stayed as a lodger for some months at Lepley’s Farm and then took Lennsdale which belongs to Mr. Bannister of Peakborough, an auctioner and agent and all sorts of things generally, who lets it furnished—”
“Lepley,” I murmured, “that name seems familiar—”
“Yes,” Mrs. Vicar went on, right in her element now, “you will be thinking of the girl who gave evidence at the inquest, Nora Lepley, tall, good-looking, with dark eyes. She lives at the farm though she sometimes stays at White Towers with her aunt, the housekeeper there. I remember there was some talk about Ronald Thoyne and Nora Lepley, but there was nothing in it, or, anyway nothing came of it. Talk’s easy in a place like this, you know—there is nothing else to do. And there’s always been plenty of talk round Nora Lepley—”
“A good girl, my dear, a good girl,” the Vicar mildly interposed.
“Oh, yes, quite,” Mrs. Vicar admitted.
“Exceptionally well able to take care of herself I should imagine,” was my own comment, whereat Mrs. Vicar nodded emphatically.
It was two days after that conversation that I met Detective Pepster in the village.
“Ah, Mr. Holt,” he said, “I was coming to see you. I have found out where Mr. Thoyne is.”
“Why,” I returned, “there was no particular mystery about that, was there? He’d made none so far as I know. What is the point?”
“Well—he disappeared.”
“Disappeared? Do you call it that? He left the furnished house he’d been occupying and went off to his yacht, the Sunrise, but that isn’t disappearing.”
“No—well, perhaps in a way it isn’t. But I’m going to interview Mr. Ronald Thoyne for all that and with a warrant in my pocket—”
“It hardly seems likely that Thoyne—”
“I don’t put my money on what is likely,” Pepster interrupted. “I’ve been had that way. I once had a case of the theft of a diamond ring. There were only three men possible—a bookmaker who’d once been in prison for horse-doping, a defaulting bankrupt and a clergyman. I arrested the horse-doper and kept an eye on the bankrupt, but it was the parson who had the ring.”
“You ought to write your reminiscences,” I remarked dryly.
“I am looking forward to doing so when my pension falls due,” Pepster returned, entirely unabashed. “But, now, let’s talk business. The warrant isn’t for Thoyne himself, but for Tulmin. Thoyne will come into it later—accessory after or before the fact, you know. Tulmin will do to be going on with.”
“You think Thoyne has taken Tulmin on board the yacht with him?”
“I don’t know—perhaps—perhaps not. But Thoyne has spirited Tulmin away somehow, somewhere. Isn’t that clear? And why has he done it?”
“Yes, I know, you explained before that Thoyne had paid Tulmin to murder Sir Philip—”
“No, Mr. Holt, that was your theory,” Pepster explained patiently. “And you said you didn’t believe it. No, Thoyne may have done the murder himself, or he may not, and Tulmin may have spotted him at it. But, to tell the truth, I’m not worrying about that just now. It is Tulmin I want. There’s enough against him to be going on with, anyway, and I mean to get him and to learn why Thoyne carried him off. Will you come down to Ilbay with me?”
“Ilbay?”
“Yes, the yacht’s there.”
“When do you go?”
“To-morrow.”
“No,” I said slowly, “I can’t go to-morrow. I could go the next day, but not to-morrow.”
“Well, that’ll do,” he replied. “There’s a breakdown in the machinery and he can’t shift for at least four days. I’ve got that much anyhow. The day after to-morrow, then. I’ll send you a list of the trains.”
An hour or so later I called at Hapforth House and was shown into the presence of Lady Clevedon and Miss Kitty.
“Well,” said the old lady, a little tartly, “have you made any discoveries?”
“Yes,” I returned equably, “several. But I have run up against a brick wall and I’ve come to you to pull it down for me. I can’t get over it or under it or round it.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about!” the old lady cried irascibly. “The question is—do you know who killed Philip Clevedon?”
“Well,” I said, “it depends. Perhaps I do, and possibly I am wrong.”
I glanced casually at Miss Kitty Clevedon, over whose pretty face some inward emotion had drawn a greyish pallor that extended even to her lips. It was quite certain that the last thing she wanted to hear was the name of the person who had killed Sir Philip Clevedon. But she was seated a little behind the old lady who noticed nothing.
CHAPTER XIV
KITTY SENDS A TELEGRAM
“And when will you arrest him?” Lady Clevedon demanded.
“Ah, yes,” I returned slowly, “that is just it. You see, the difference between knowing and proving is several thousand miles and this brick wall—”
“Oh, you and your brick walls!” the old lady cried, waving her hands with an impatient and fretful gesture. “I want to see the murderer hanged and the whole thing cleared away and forgotten. He was stabbed with my hatpin and there are people silly enough to—”
“But, Auntie, Mr. Holt must be able to prove his case before he can arrest—anyone,” Miss Kitty Clevedon chimed in.
She spoke naturally and the colour had returned to her cheeks. My graphic description of the difference between knowledge and proof had apparently brought its consolation.
The old lady snorted disagreeably but seemed to have no convincing retort ready.
“And what is the brick wall you chatter so much about?” she demanded.
“I want to know,” I said slowly, examining the back of my left hand with apparent solicitude, “what hold the late Sir Philip Clevedon had over Miss Clevedon that she broke off her engagement with Mr. Ronald Thoyne and consented to marry the late baronet?”
There was for a moment or two a dead silence in the room, a silence that could be felt and almost touched. It was the old lady who finally exploded in a manifestation of wrath.
“My niece was never engaged to Ronald Thoyne,” she cried. “You are impertinent.”
“Never?” I queried, ignoring her concluding sentence.
“And she never promised to marry Sir Philip Clevedon.”
“No?”
She turned suddenly on the girl who, as I have said, was seated a little behind her.
“Was that what they meant at the inquest?” she demanded. “They said—that housekeeper, wasn’t it?—that Philip Clevedon and Ronald Thoyne quarrelled over—over a—a woman. Was that it? Tell me the truth.”
“I don’t know what Mr. Holt is talking about,” the girl replied carelessly.
She had entirely recovered her equanimity and was completely mistress of herself again.
“You were not engaged to Mr. Thoyne?” I asked.
“I was not.”
“And Sir Philip did not want to marry you?”
“Yes, he did,” Lady Clevedon interposed. “He proposed to you a year ago and you refused him. Was it over you they quarrelled, Kitty?”
“I don’t know anything about it,” Miss Clevedon returned a little wearily. “I don’t know why they should.”
The old lady rose from her seat and strode towards a little bureau in one corner of the room from which she took a bundle of newspaper cuttings.
“Yes, here is the report,” she said, and she began to read an extract from Mrs. Halfleet’s evidence in a loud, rather strident voice.
“I heard Sir Philip say, ‘You are talking nonsense. I cannot compel her to marry me against her will. The decision rests with her.’ He was not exactly shouting but was speaking a little more loudly than usual. Mr. Thoyne seemed angry. ‘You must release her from her promise,’ he said. His voice was hoarse and he struck the table with his stick as he spoke. I think Sir Philip stood up from his seat then. I did not see him, of course, but I seemed to hear him walking up and down. And he spoke sharply, almost angrily. The words appeared to come out with a sort of snap. ‘I have nothing to say in this matter,’ Sir Philip declared. ‘I neither hold her to her promise nor release her from it. The decision rests solely with her. If she notifies me that she cannot marry me, I have no power to compel her. But I am not prepared to take your word for it. The decision must come from herself.’ Mr. Thoyne said, ‘That is your last word, is it?’ to which Sir Philip replied, ‘My first word and my last. As far as I am concerned I am engaged and remain engaged until the young lady herself notifies me that the engagement is at an end.’ Then Mr. Thoyne said, ‘If you don’t release her I shall find a way of making you—I shall find a way.’”
The old lady ceased reading and glanced at Kitty over the top of her spectacles.
“What is behind it?” she cried. “Tell me, what is behind it all?”
“I don’t know,” Kitty said. “How should I know?”
“But—was it—who was it?”
“It may have been—Nora Lepley.”
I think she uttered the name quite on the spur of the moment and with no previous intention of taking that way out. At all events, for a moment or two the suggestion seemed rather to impress the old lady, then she shook her head.
“I don’t say that Nora Lepley—Philip Clevedon was like all other men, I dare say, no better and no worse. But he wouldn’t want to marry her. They might fight over Nora Lepley, yes, but it wouldn’t be because either of them wanted to marry her.”
“Why shouldn’t they want to marry Nora—she is very nice?” Kitty said.
“Don’t talk nonsense, child,” the old lady cried.
“These are democratic days—” I was beginning, but the old lady turned on me almost ferociously.
“I wasn’t asking you for your views,” she said. “And we’ll leave it at that. These two men quarrelled over Nora Lepley, or Jane Smith, or Martha Tompkins, and so—”
I rose from my seat and stood regarding them with a smile.
“And so my question goes unanswered,” I murmured, “and my brick wall remains.”
The old lady looked from me to Miss Kitty Clevedon and then back again.
“Yes,” she said, “and that ends the case. You must drop it—do you hear?—drop it. I am getting in deeper than I thought.”
I laughed quietly and then went towards the door.
“I am seeing Mr. Thoyne at Ilbay to-morrow,” I said, pausing there to make quite sure Kitty heard me, “and I will ask him.”
I left them, probably wondering what might be the precise meaning of that last promise—or was it a threat?—and finding my way out strolled slowly down to the big gates.
Once in the public road, however, I indulged in a course of action that might possibly have seemed a little strange to an uninitiated spectator. First of all I stood glancing here and there around me as if looking for someone or something. Then I made my way to the side of the road and clambered to the top of a small pile of boulders on the summit of which I found a seat on a flat stone, so placed that I was invisible to anyone coming from Hapforth House or proceeding in either direction along the road. Having made myself as comfortable as the circumstances permitted, I took out my watch. “Now for the test,” I murmured. “Unless I am out in all my deductions Kitty Clevedon will emerge from Hapforth House in something like half an hour.”
In point of fact it was precisely twenty-three minutes, and curiously enough she did exactly as I had done—stood outside the big gates and looked carefully about her in all directions. But there the resemblance ended. She did not, like me, climb any of the neighbouring rocks, but set off at a smart pace in the direction of Cartordale village, whither also in a very few minutes I followed her. “Mistake number one, young lady,” I murmured. “You should have taken your car into Midlington. You wouldn’t have lost much time and you would have made it safe. Now, then, for the post office.”
I was right again. It was into the little village post office that Kitty Clevedon turned. I did not follow her, but instead stepped into the garden that ran alongside the house and sat myself down on a rustic seat that stood just below a small window, and was hidden from the roadway by a huge, black, soft-water butt. It had been a discovery of my own, made quite casually a few days previously, and merely noted as I noted everything. From that seat it was possible to hear quite plainly the tapping of the telegraph instrument within. Ah, there it was now, tap-tap-tap-tap, H, TAP-tap-TAP, K, TAP-tap, N—oh, yes, of course “H. knows—”
Poor Kitty! She did not dream that the man she dreaded was seated under that little window reading her message as easily as if she had shown him the form on which she had written it. “H. knows your address and is coming to-morrow to see you.” I sped out of the garden and through the village, and taking a short cut met Kitty on her way back to Hapforth House. I was strolling along dragging my stick behind me, and I stopped as I reached her.
“Have you sent your telegram to Mr. Thoyne?” I asked.
She was trying to bluff me and I did not mean to spare her. Why should I? It was she who had declared war.
“My—my—I do not understand you, Mr. Holt,” she stammered, for once taken off her guard.
“Quite a random shot of mine,” I replied smilingly. “I inadvertently let out that I was going to Ilbay to see Mr. Thoyne, and it was natural you should want to warn him.”
“But what have I to do with—with Mr. Thoyne, and why should I want to warn him? Why shouldn’t you visit him if you wish?”
“But you did send him a wire, didn’t you?” I persisted.
“You are impertinent, Mr. Holt!” she cried.
“Yes, I fear I am,” I agreed. “One often has to be in such jobs as this. And it is your own fault, you know.”
“My fault!”
“Yes, you challenge me by your whole attitude. Your visit that night—”
“I have already denied any visit.”
“You adhere to that—good. But, don’t you see that that is the challenge? And now we have this quarrel between Thoyne and Sir Philip Clevedon—”
She turned on me swiftly with flaming cheeks and eyes that sparkled angrily, but I interrupted the coming outburst.
“I am sorry I have offended you,” I said, “but I am afraid that was inevitable. You would have done better to trust me. Anyway, I am in this case and I intend to solve the problem it presents. If it is to be war between us—”
“I do not understand you, Mr. Holt.”
“Let it be war, then, and we’ll fight it out.”
And I continued on my way, still dragging my stick behind me.
CHAPTER XV
ON RONALD THOYNE’S YACHT
Ilbay we discovered to be a very tiny village, hardly more than a cluster of cottages, a small inn and a church.
There was a jetty, built of stone in a rough-and-tumble fashion that clearly betokened amateur workmanship, and flanked on either side by a semi-circular sweep of sandy beach that ended in a jumble of rocks lying at the bases of tall cliffs. The road came over the hills after threading its way through vast moorlands and dipped steeply down to the village and the sea.
“The yacht is still here,” Pepster announced, on his return from what he described as “an early morning prowl round.”
“Can we get a boat?” I asked.
“I have already annexed one,” Pepster replied. “We mustn’t waste time in this case. The yacht may up-anchor and steam off at any minute. The boat is ready and the men are waiting.”
“The sooner the better,” I agreed. “It is understood that you do all the talking?”
“It shouldn’t need much talking, but anyway I’ll start it.”
“Then the sooner the better,” I repeated.
“Let us be off.”
Ronald Thoyne met us on the deck of the yacht and stood with his hands clasped loosely behind him, surveying us with a queer, twisted smile on his face. He waited for us to speak and evidently had no intention of helping us out. If he wondered how we had caught his trail he said nothing.
“We have come,” Pepster began, “for a word or two with Tulmin.”
“Tulmin!” Thoyne exclaimed. “What a disappointment when I thought it was a friendly call on myself. Though I can’t say you look very friendly or I might invite you to stay to lunch. I have quite a good cook, a negro, certainly, but in his way a genius. Now if—”
“I suppose,” Pepster said with a smile, “you are talking to gain time.”
“No, not at all,” Thoyne replied calmly. “Why should I? Let us come down to bedrock facts. Tulmin isn’t here.”
“We traced him here,” Pepster interposed in his small, squeaky voice. “He was here, you know.”
“You see,” Pepster went on, “I have a warrant for his arrest, and if you continue to conceal him you are interfering with the law, always a rather dangerous proceeding.”
“Your little lecture is interesting,” Thoyne replied carelessly, “but doesn’t apply. You see, I am an American citizen and your law doesn’t interest me. This ship sails under the Stars and Stripes, you know, and you daren’t forcibly seize anyone from under that flag. No, don’t get angry—it won’t pay you. I have a dozen men on board who will obey my lifted finger. If I told them to pitch you into the water, into the water you would go.”
He turned his back on us and leaning his elbows on the brightly polished rail, gazed down into the cool, green depths of the water that was lap-lapping idly against the sides of the vessel.
“But I am not angry,” Pepster explained, “only interested. Is that your case—that Tulmin is aboard the vessel, but that I dare not take him off an American ship? If that is so—”
“Don’t be a damned fool!” Thoyne retorted roughly, facing us again.
“I won’t—more than I can help,” Pepster responded mildly.
“Well, anyway, you can search the yacht,” Thoyne went on. “Tulmin isn’t here—I know nothing of him.”
He took a whistle from his pocket and blew a shrill note which was answered almost simultaneously by a sprightly youth, who must have been waiting near at hand, so rapid was his appearance.
“Bender, take this gentleman over the yacht and show him everything—everything, damn you!”
“Yes, sir.”
Pepster glanced at me but I shook my head. I intended to have a few words with Thoyne on my own account.
“I’m no good at a search,” I said. “That is police work. I’ll leave it to you.”
It was the first time I had spoken since we had boarded the yacht.
“And now,” Thoyne said, facing me with glaring eyes, “perhaps you’ll tell me what the hell sort of game you think you are playing.”
I regarded him smilingly for a moment or two.
“Did you get Miss Clevedon’s telegram?” I asked.
“Why,” he said quickly, “did she tell—oh, I don’t know what you are talking about. And I don’t understand why you want to butt in on this. What business of yours is it, anyway?”
“Well, I thought perhaps it was the telegram that caused you to send Tulmin away so hurriedly yesterday,” I remarked.
He stood glaring at me for a moment or two, then turned away with a quick laugh.
“Why should I let you go now you are here?” he said. “Tell me that. You are in my power and I could carry you and that fat fool who came with you to the ends of the earth. What could you say?”
“I am sure it would be an enjoyable trip,” I replied.
“Oh, it would be all right. I would see to that. I shouldn’t ill-use you—only keep you locked up until we were well away.”
“Yes,” I remarked, “it sounds all right. But in the first place, you can’t move until your missing machinery comes to hand and—”
“What the devil do you know about my missing machinery?” he roared. “But, of course, I was only talking off the top,” he went on. “I am doing nothing desperate. But, now, man to man, what is the game? Put your cards on the table, face up.”
“I’ll see.”
“You mean you’re not playing your own hand. Well, it’s a one-sided bargain, but I’m willing. Listen carefully and then do just as you like, with this certainty in your mind that what you try to hide I shall nevertheless discover. I need only remind you of what I have already told you—Miss Clevedon’s wire and Tulmin’s hurried departure, not to mention the missing machinery. You may deny as much as you like but you know full well it is all true. Now, then, for the story. Pepster wants Tulmin in order that he may arrest him for the murder of Sir Philip Clevedon. Not that he believes Tulmin to be the principal or is quite sure that he actually did the killing. But—why are you keeping Tulmin out of the way?”
“Perhaps I was the—”
“Perhaps you were,” I agreed equably.
Thoyne glared at me speechlessly for a moment or two, then threw back his head with a great, bellowing roar of laughter.
“And is that your theory?” he demanded, when he had regained breath.
“No,” I replied, still speaking with careful deliberation. “I am not very keenly interested in Tulmin nor in yourself, except just in passing. It is someone—quite—different. Who stands to gain most from Sir Philip Clevedon’s death? Tell me that.”
His face went as white as Kitty Clevedon’s had done when I made a similar suggestion in her presence at Hapforth House.
“But I am not clear on details,” I went on, “and what I want to know—the real reason, indeed, for my being here—is why Miss Kitty Clevedon promised to marry Sir Philip, though it is quite obvious that her affections are—otherwise bestowed. Now let us take the course of events. You quarrelled with Sir Philip Clevedon over a woman—and that woman was Miss Kitty Clevedon.”
“It is a lie—a damned lie!” he said thickly, clenching his great fists.
“It was stated by Mrs. Halfleet at the inquest—”
“Kitty’s name—Miss Clevedon’s name was never—Mrs. Halfleet mentioned no name.”
“Miss Clevedon promised to marry Sir Philip and you quarrelled with him in consequence. Why did she promise?”
“It’s a lie—she never did.”
“Then perhaps you will tell me the name of the woman over whom you quarrelled.”
“It was nobody you know.”
“I have been told—it was suggested—that it was Nora Lepley.”
“Nora Lepley! What the devil has she to do with it?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It is not my suggestion because, you see, I know who the lady was. The one missing link in my chain of evidence is not the lady’s identity but her reason for throwing you over and saying ‘Yes’ to Sir Philip.”
“Why do you want to know? What has it to do with the—the murder?”
“I cannot tell you until I have all the facts.”
“You will not get the lady’s name out of me.”
“But I don’t want her name,” I retorted tranquilly, “I know that already.”
“It was not Miss Clevedon.”
“No?”
“Nor Nora Lepley.”
“No, I am sure of that. But the name doesn’t matter. Will you tell me why Miss Clevedon agreed to marry Sir Philip?”
“I will tell you nothing—nothing at all. You are a damned Paul Pry. What business is it of yours?”
“Very well, then I—but here comes Mr. Pepster, unsuccessful as I see and as I knew he would be. I will not worry you any more just now, Mr. Thoyne, but I will let you know how I go on.”
I nodded cheerfully and made my way to the side where our boat was moored, and, indeed, I think that if I had not moved out of his way just then he would have hit me.
In tackling a case of this sort, any case, indeed, I like to build up as I go along and leave no blank spaces. Very often I have spent much time over some detail that had eluded me, and occasionally I have found that time wasted. But far more frequently it has happened that the fitting in of one missing piece has straightened out much that followed. And I like to observe my chronology.
This question of Kitty Clevedon and her engagement to the baronet may seem trifling and I had no certainty myself of its relative importance, but I was quite assured in my own mind that I could make very little of what followed until I had straightened that. There was no reasonable doubt that Kitty Clevedon was the mysterious lady of the quarrel—she fitted so completely into the picture. That both these men wanted her was common gossip in the Dale and it seemed equally evident that her preference was for Ronald Thoyne. Yet, apparently, she had promised herself to the baronet. Why? And why should Thoyne quarrel with him over it? It was her right to choose. The only possible explanation was that the promise had been extracted from her by some means that had not left her a free agent. And there was my missing piece. Why had Kitty Clevedon promised to marry Sir Philip?
I received my first glimmer of light from Pepster, though it was quite unconscious on his part.
The inn at Ilbay was a delightful old place, full of odd, mysterious corners, quaint unexpected doorways and queerly shaped rooms that were always a step or two below or a step or two above the passage that led to them and thus constituted traps for the unwary visitor. Pepster and I had a small parlour to ourselves, a queer room with five walls and a couple of huge beams crossed on the ceiling. It had a wide, open fire-place but no grate, the pile of blazing logs resting on the hearth, while the flames roared and spluttered into the darkness of a capacious chimney. The room had only one small window that looked out over the jetty and the bay, and was shrouded at night by warm crimson curtains; and one had to climb three steps in order to reach the door which opened into the bar.
Chief among the furniture was a black oak dresser with an inscription on the panel, reading, “John and Annie Tumm, 1671,” but all the rest was new and neither good nor artistic. The “pictures” consisted of the faded photographs of a past generation, framed funeral cards and a Sunday School certificate awarded to Elizabeth Tumm, 1874. The black oak dresser and that document bridged 200 years of Tumms.
“Comfortable quarters,” Mr. Pepster remarked, as he sat in a big wicker chair toasting his toes at the fire and sipping at a glass of hot whisky.
“Very,” I agreed, being similarly situated and occupied at the other side of the hearthrug. There was another long silence between us, which again Pepster broke.
“Do you know,” he said, “I am a little worried—no, that is hardly the word—a little interested in Sir William Clevedon.”
“Yes?”
I did not add that Sir William Clevedon was just then the centre of all my own inquiries, but I was curious to hear what he had to say about it.
“You see,” Pepster went on, “he has never been to take up his title or the money. The title I could understand. There are too many of them about in these days to make any of them really worth while. But he stands in also for the cash—there was no will and Billy Clevedon takes the lot. Where is he?”
“Do you mean that he has disappeared?”
“Well, that’s rather a long word. But nobody seems to know where he is.”
“You have made inquiries?”
“Oh, yes. He started a long leave on February 20th—his battalion is in Ireland, you know—and is straightway lost. But as to where he is—”
“His sister will know.”
“She says she doesn’t.”
“Did Miss Clevedon tell you that herself?”
“Well, no, not directly. It was old Parfitter, the family lawyer, who dropped a hint, so to speak. ‘Sir William Clevedon ought to be home looking after this business and helping to clear up the mess,’ I said to him. The old chap wagged his head mysteriously. ‘Aye,’ he replied, ‘he’ll be Sir William now, of course—yes.’ I hazarded the opinion that his long-delayed appearance was breeding rumours. ‘For his own sake he should come,’ I said. The old fossil took the alarm at once. ‘Rumours? he asked sharply. What rumours?’ He glared at me as if I were in some way responsible. ‘Oh, nothing definite,’ I said, ‘just rumours, mere talk.’ And then he opened out and let go, said he would like to ask my advice and so on. In short, they didn’t know where Billy Clevedon was, none of them knew, not even his sister. And there it is. He will turn up in good time—if he hasn’t some reason for stopping away. The question is, has he?”
“Has he what?” I demanded.
“A good reason for stopping away.”
That was precisely the point at which I had arrived myself.
CHAPTER XVI
THE MYSTERY OF BILLY CLEVEDON
“Tell me,” I went on, “all you know about young Clevedon. His continued absence is certainly interesting.”
“I am not sure that I know very much about him,” Pepster said. “You see, he never came under my survey professionally, though according to accounts that was rather by way of good luck than actual desert. When they were children, brother and sister were inseparable and were always up to mischief of some sort. Their parents died when they were babies and they went to live at White Towers with old Lady Clevedon. When she went back to Hapforth House on the death of her husband, they went with her and in due time were packed off to school—”
“Yes, all that is common knowledge,” I interrupted. “But what about Ireland?”
“He is a captain in the 2nd Peakshires and they are stationed in Ireland.”
“But apparently he isn’t in Ireland now.”
“I don’t know that he isn’t. He went off on leave which began on February 20th and started for Dublin. But whether he ever reached that city or what he did next nobody knows.”
“They were very fond of each other, these two, I suppose.”
“Meaning the brother and sister?”
“Yes.”
“They were inseparable until their school-days came.”
I lay back in my basket chair and sent a long wraith of blue smoke curling and winding towards the ceiling.
“There may be nothing in it,” I murmured, “and yet why does he remain away? Suppose Thoyne and Clevedon quarrelled over Kitty and young Billy interfered—”
“I won’t say it is impossible,” Pepster interposed, “and if it had been a bullet or a blow from a fist or a stick I might have looked at it seriously, but poison is not Billy Clevedon’s line.”
“One never knows—there are no such things as impossibilities. There is a story behind all this.”
Pepster sat for some minutes gazing meditatively into the fire.
“There is a story behind it—yes,” he said. “Do you really think young Clevedon—?”
I smiled at that and shook my head.
“So far,” I said, “we have brought him to Dublin and that is a long way from Cartordale.”
“Yes, you’re right,” Pepster agreed. “We must bring him a bit nearer home. I wonder where Tulmin is.”
“You trot off to Dublin and look up young Billy,” I replied. “I will hang about here for a day or two and see what I can pick up.”
Ilbay, as I think I have already said, consists only of a score or so of tiny cottages clustered together at the foot of a tall cliff to the left of the jetty, while to the right a rough road goes upwards through what seems to be a narrow valley running inland. I determined upon a walk, not that I expected to discover anything thereabout, since the presence of the Sunrise at Ilbay appeared to be due more to accident than design. When I had been walking about half an hour I met an old white-headed man, who had apparently emerged from a jumble of hillocks and rocks by the roadside where perhaps he had been resting. He stood leaning heavily on his stick and surveying me with bleared, age-dimmed eyes which, however, showed no surprise nor any other interpretable sentiment.
“Where does this road go?” I asked.
“The road—where does it go?” he repeated, mumbling his words from a mouth that was evidently all but toothless, “wey, it goes over yonder”—and he pointed vaguely into the grey distance.
“How far is it to the next village?”
“Oh aye, that’ll be Little Upton, a matter of seven mile maybe and maybe twelve.”
He turned abruptly away and continued his walk towards the coast.
The road ran desolate and unfrequented, with open moorland on either side, as grim and forbidding as open moorland can be in early spring before winter has taken its final departure. The little fishing hamlet lay behind me hidden by the rising ground, while before and around me were only illimitable open spaces within an unbroken pall of grey sky overhead—no sign of human habitation anywhere visible. I decided that Ilbay was the more attractive and that I had nothing to gain by going on.
And it was just here at the loneliest and dreariest turn of the road that I met Ronald Thoyne again coming towards me with long, swinging strides. He stopped and faced me with a rather twisted grin.
“Still on the trail, Mr. Holt?” he said, with half a sneer: “Any discoveries?”
“Several,” I returned cheerfully. “I am, in short, getting on.”
“You must possess a really attractive collection of mare’s-nests,” he retorted.
“A few—yes. But this isn’t one. Not but what there are still puzzles in it. I can well understand that when Miss Kitty Clevedon told her brother that she had been compelled to promise to marry Sir Philip, he should offer to set her free by threatening to mur—no, keep your hands off me, Thoyne. But what I haven’t yet settled is why she promised to marry Sir Philip or what hold he had over her. There is a story behind it that would solve the puzzle, but I haven’t got it yet. I shall get it though, and if it involves young Clevedon—”
I broke off there with a short laugh, stepping back just in time to avoid the quick, nervous blow Thoyne aimed at me with his stick. He recovered himself on the instant and grinned a little ruefully.
“If you think Billy Clevedon murdered Sir Philip,” he said, “you are hopelessly out of your reckoning. A bullet or a blow, perhaps, but not poison. That isn’t Billy’s way.”
Pepster, I remembered, had said the same thing and I merely duplicated my reply.
“Oh, as for that,” I said, “one never knows. Where is he, anyway?”
“You don’t know?”
“No,” I responded. “I never pretend a knowledge I do not possess. I don’t know where he is—do you?”
“No,” he replied slowly, “I don’t. I would give £5,000 at this moment if I did.”
“If he is innocent,” I said, “he is a fool for stopping away, and no less, perhaps, if he is guilty because, at least, his guilt has to be proved. If you are hiding him you are doing him no service. I am not looking for him but the police are.”
“The police!”
“Could you expect otherwise? Here you have a title and a fortune and the owner refuses to come and take them. Why?”
“I wish,” he said a little wistfully, “that you and I were on the same side of the wall.”
“Meaning by that—”
“That you were with us instead of against us.”
I paused long and my reply to that was very carefully considered.
“Mr. Thoyne,” I said, “I am not on any side—I am not for or against anyone. I deal only in facts. If I convinced myself that young Clevedon murdered Sir Philip, I should say so. I have no reason for thinking that he did and certainly no desire to drag him into it. I am not fighting you nor anybody. You do not think young Clevedon murdered Sir Philip, or you try not to think so, but at the back of your mind is the fear that he did. You are therefore prejudiced but not, as you may think, in his favour. Your very horror of the possibility persuades you to treat it almost as a probability. But I, on the other hand, consider only evidence. I have no personal views in favour and certainly no prejudices against.”
“And what evidence have you?” he demanded.
“None,” I replied, “except what you and Miss Clevedon have provided and what his absence emphasises. If you and she had kept out of it and he had been at Cartordale, as he should have been, no suspicion ever would have attached to him. At this moment the only evidence against him is the belief you and Miss Clevedon harbour, that he—”
He paced from one side of the road to the other and then back again.
“I wish I dared tell you the whole story,” he said. “I believe you could help us.”
Without another word he resumed his walk and plodded steadily on without so much as a backward glance.
But I knew now that my surmises were accurate—that Sir William Clevedon’s continued and unexplained absence was breeding deadly and sinister fears in the bosoms of his friends, of his sister especially. That she was at the bottom of Thoyne’s mysterious activities seemed clear enough. It was for her sake, probably at her instigation, that he had tried so hard to envelop me in fog. And it seemed evident that she was in possession of knowledge which, so far, neither Pepster nor myself had penetrated. It would be my business to discover what that was. I had not, however, very long to wait.
CHAPTER XVII
MORE ABOUT BILLY CLEVEDON
Thoyne must have started off immediately for Cartordale because it was no later than the next morning, while I was seriously considering whether I should return home or follow Pepster to Dublin that I received a wire from Thoyne reading: “Can you see K.C. and self at C. to-morrow?” K.C. was Kitty and C. was Cartordale and I was not long in making up my mind. I wired off a prompt reply suggesting Stone Hollow as the place of meeting. They were awaiting me when I arrived and they had evidently agreed that Thoyne should start the talking.
“We want to know,” he began slowly, “which side you would take if—”
He stopped there, perhaps expecting me to help him out. But I remained stubbornly silent.
“Suppose,” he went on, taking a sudden plunge, “you proved that—that Clevedon did—was involved in—in the death of Sir Philip—would you take your proof to the police?”
“I will make no promises either way,” I replied. “You sent for me and I am here. Why did you invite me to come and what have I to do with it, anyway? You need say nothing unless you wish. And in any case, I am not a detective but a writer of books—”
“Then why need you tell the police?” Kitty interposed softly.
“Tell them what?” I demanded, turning suddenly upon her.
She paled a little and shrank back.
“I did not say I should tell the police,” I went on. “Indeed, I decline to discuss the point. I retain absolute freedom and if you prefer to say good-bye, well, the decision rests with you.”
“The fact is,” Thoyne blurted out, “the thing is so much a nightmare to us, that we must settle it one way or the other. It would be better almost to know the worst than to rest in continual doubt.”
“But why come to me?”
“Because we think you can help us.”
“I am not a detective: I take no fees: I go my own way: I make no promises.”
“We accept your conditions,” Thoyne said, with a glance at Kitty who nodded an affirmative.
The story they told me was certainly interesting and what they omitted at the first telling, I managed to elicit by subsequent questioning.
Sir Philip Clevedon, it seemed, had given Kitty to understand that her brother was in some danger, though he had been judiciously vague, depending more upon hints, suggestions and innuendo than on definite statements. He was easily able to startle an impressionable girl where a man or an older woman might have been able to extract the truth from him by a process of cross-examination.
Only one thing stood out clear, that Billy was in some kind of a mess from which it would cost far more money than she possessed to extricate him, and that Sir Philip would find the cash if she consented to marry him, which she did. Sir Philip’s action could only be justified by the old adage that “All’s fair in love and war.” Undoubtedly he was very much in love with her which may be urged as his justification. “I have wealth and a title and I am not an old man,” he said to her, “and you have youth and beauty; it is not an unequal bargain.” That was true enough. Marriages far less appropriate occur every day. But nothing would have induced Miss Kitty Clevedon to consent except the thought that by her sacrifice she was saving her brother from some disaster, the details of which she did not understand.
Then came a very difficult task, to tell Ronald Thoyne that their little romance was ended and that she was going to marry Sir Philip Clevedon. Thoyne seems to have written straight off to Billy Clevedon, in which he was wise, and then went and had a row with Sir Philip, which was foolish.
Billy Clevedon as soon as he received Thoyne’s letter seems to have rushed off to Midlington where he summoned both Thoyne and Kitty to meet him. There under pressure from him, not unassisted perhaps by Thoyne, she told the story of her interview with Sir Philip.
“The swine!” Billy cried. “The unbuttered swine! I’ll wring his filthy neck for him. You’ll not marry him, Kitty, I’ll do for him first.”
He was very angry and swore mightily, but they paid little heed to his wrath. It was characteristic of him to be a trifle over-emphatic in his expressions.
“I asked him to lend me some money, it is true,” he said, “but it wasn’t as much as he told you and it didn’t matter in that way. I was in a hole but that was nothing new and there was no disgrace attached to it. But I’ll settle it—you leave to me. Kiss Ronny Thoyne and make it up with him.”
Billy took two or three turns up and down the room, spitting out the words as he went.
“It’s blackmail,” he continued. “But of course it’s nonsense. He can’t make her if—does she want to marry him?”
“She does not,” Thoyne told him promptly.
“No, I should think not. He’s twice her age and more. But I see his game—he must be an infernal cad. I didn’t suspect that of him. He is cold and selfish but I did not think he was that sort of reptile. I knew nothing of this, Thoyne—you believe that, don’t you. I am a mixture like most men but I am not that sort.”
He resumed his restless pacing to and fro.
“I had no idea of it, none at all,” he repeated. He did not tell them what the trouble was nor why he had wanted the money.
“I would have lent—” Thoyne was beginning, but Billy airily dismissed the suggestion.
“I’m all right for a bit and I’ll make the blasted baronet shell out somehow,” he said. “Don’t you worry. But I’m busy now—an engagement I must meet. I’ll see you later on. Meanwhile you cut clear of the swine.”
“Aren’t you coming to Cartordale?” Kitty asked him.
“Presently,” he told them, “but not to-night. Thoyne, you take her home.”
Thoyne did and left her at Hapforth House early in the evening.
The next day—the fatal 23rd—passed without any word from Billy. We know what happened on that day—Thoyne’s quarrel with the baronet and Kitty’s visit to White Towers in the evening. But the latter did not return directly to Hapforth House. She ran her little two-seater into Midlington only some twelve miles distant and called at the hotel at which she had met her brother on the previous day. But he was not there. He had paid his bill, packed his bag and departed.
She returned to Cartordale but her car broke down on the way and she pushed it to the side of the road and tried a short cut to Hapforth House, missing her way in the fog and landing in my study. The next day came the tragic story of Sir Philip’s death and though both she and Thoyne affected to believe that Billy could have had nothing to do with it, they were nevertheless terribly anxious and alarmed, the more as the days went on and nothing was heard of or from him.
“And now let me reduce it to definite dates,” I said. “You will check me if I am wrong. You left your brother at the ‘King’s Head’ in Midlington on the afternoon of February 22nd. He left the hotel on the morning of February 23rd. Sir Philip Clevedon died on the night of the 23rd.”
They nodded a joint affirmative.
“In other words, and to put it in its most brutal form, he left Midlington and came secretly to Cartordale, having first obtained some poison, secured an entrance to White Towers, poisoned Sir Philip’s whisky, disappeared—”
“But I don’t believe—” Kitty began.
“No,” I said, “of course you don’t, but that summary of possibilities represents your fears.”
“Why doesn’t he show up?” Thoyne interposed.
“Yes,” I agreed, “that is precisely the question we have to answer. Could he have got into White Towers without being seen? You and he lived there as children and I have been told that you were veritable little imps of mischief. All sorts of things would be possible in connection with a big and ancient mansion like White Towers.”
Kitty looked woefully distressed and turned with white-faced, pathetic pleading to Thoyne.
“I should tell everything, Kitty, dear,” he said.
“There is a secret way into White Towers which we discovered years ago,” she replied. “We agreed to keep it to ourselves and I have never told anyone. I don’t think anyone knows of it except my brother and myself.”
I regarded her thoughtfully for a moment or two.
“Well, now,” I said, “you know of that secret way—could you have entered White Towers and placed the poison in that bottle without being seen?”
“Surely, you don’t think I—”
“Could you?”
“Yes, but—”
“Well, now, look,” I said, importing a sudden harshness into my tones, “you hated the thought of marrying Sir Philip and his death would mean your release, besides which it would mean wealth to your brother and a happy issue from his financial—”
“But the suggestion is infamous, intolerable!” Thoyne cried.
“Don’t be a fool,” I advised him. “I am not accusing Miss Clevedon; I am summarising the case against her brother. The first essential is to establish a motive and there you have one twice over—Sir Philip’s death would release his sister from a hateful marriage and it would—he would succeed to the dead man’s title and money. I am being purposely brutal because I want to put it at its worst. He comes to Midlington, a few miles from Cartordale on the day before the tragedy, he leaves Midlington for some unknown destination, which may, however, have been Cartordale, a few hours before the murder, he knows a secret way into White Towers, and he has a dual motive for assassinating Sir Philip. You have summed all this up in your own minds, haven’t you? It has been a dark shadow in your thoughts ever since that tragic day. Isn’t that so?”
There was a long silence.
“Yes,” Thoyne said at length, “you are perfectly right. You have described exactly what, as I said before, has been a ceaseless nightmare to us. And you have omitted the main difficulty. Why doesn’t he come to Cartordale?”
“But, now,” I went on, “let us take the other side. There is no evidence of any sort that Clevedon ever had any prussic acid in his possession. Or is there?”
“We know of none,” Thoyne assented eagerly.
“And you?” I asked, turning to Kitty.
“No,” she said, shaking her head, “I never heard of any.”
“And then there is the possibility that when he left Midlington he never came to Cartordale at all. That is where our investigation begins. Where did he go when he left Midlington? Let us return to your interview in the ‘King’s Head.’ At what time did it take place?”
“In the afternoon,” Thoyne responded. “It would be three o’clock when we left the ‘King’s Head.’”
“And did he give you no indication of the nature of his engagement?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Did he say when he was coming to Cartordale?”
“No, I don’t think he mentioned it—at all events, nothing definite.”
“Well, now, let me put it like this. Suppose that after the meeting at Midlington there had been no tragedy, would your brother’s prolonged absence have worried you?”
“Oh, no,” Kitty replied. “One never knew what Billy was going to do and frequently he wasn’t sure himself. He would just do it.”
“Did you know,” I asked, “that your brother was going on a long leave. It is rather a wonder that Thoyne’s letter ever reached him, but evidently it did. The fact that he had obtained leave before the receipt of that letter suggests some contemplated purpose—the visit to Midlington was only a break in the journey.”
“Yes,” Thoyne said, “we have thought all that out. But why hasn’t he come back when—it is unbelievable that he should have seen nothing—no account of the—”
“Unlikely, but not impossible,” I observed. “He may have met with an accident, for example.”
“We should have heard of it,” Thoyne said, shaking his head.
“Well, anyway,” I returned, as cheerfully as I could, “suppose we accord him the right every Briton has under the law, of being regarded as innocent until he is proved guilty. Is he, by the way, interested, do you know, in any—lady?”
“In about a hundred, I should think,” Thoyne returned.
“Yes, I dare say he would be. At his age one is. But I mean any special lady?”
But they could give me no help in that.