The man’s swarthy rage added force to the taunt. David Hume leaped up, but Brett anticipated him, gripping his arm firmly, and without ostentation.
Margaret, too, had risen. She appeared to be battling with some powerful emotion, choking back a fierce impulse. For an instant the situation was electrical. Then the woman’s clear tones rang through the room.
“I am mistress here,” she cried, “Giovanni, remain silent or leave us. How dare you, of all men, speak thus to my cousin?”
Certainly the effect of the barrister’s straightforward statement was unlooked-for. But Brett felt that a family quarrel would not further his object at that moment. It was necessary to stop the imminent outburst, for David Hume and Giovanni Capella were silently challenging each other to mortal combat. What a place of ill-omen to the descendants of the Georgian baronet was this sun-lit library with its spacious French windows!
“Of course,” said the barrister, speaking as quietly as if he were discussing the weather, “such a topic is an unpleasant one. It is, however, unavoidable. My young friend here is determined, at all costs, to discover the secret of Sir Alan’s murder. It is imperative that he should do so. The happiness of his whole life depends upon his success. Until that mystery is solved he cannot marry the woman he loves.”
“Do you mean Helen Layton?” Margaret’s syllables might have been so many mortal daggers.
“Yes.”
“Is David still in love with her?”
“Yes.”
“And she with him?”
David Hume broke in:
“Yes, Rita. She has been faithful to the end.”
A very forcible Italian oath came from Capella as he passed through the window and strode rapidly out of sight, passing to the left of the house, where one of the lines of yew trees ended in a group of conservatories.
Margaret was now deadly white. She pressed her hand to her bosom.
“Forgive me,” she sobbed. “I do not feel well. You will both be always welcome here. Let no one interfere with you. But I must leave you. This afternoon—”
She staggered to the door. Her cousin caught her.
“Thank you, Davie,” she whispered. “Leave me now. I will be all right soon. My heart troubles me. No. Do not ring. Let us keep our miseries from the servants.”
She passed out, leaving Hume and the barrister uncertain how best to act. The situation had developed with a vengeance. Brett was more bewildered than ever before in his life.
“That scoundrel killed Alan, and now he wants to kill his own wife!” growled Hume, when they were alone.
Brett looked through him rather than at him. He was thinking intently. For a long time—minutes it seemed to his fuming companion—he remained motionless, with glazed, immovable eyes. Then he awoke to action.
“Quick!” he cried. “Tell me if this room has changed much since you were last here. Is the furniture the same? Is that the writing-table? What chair did you sit in? Where was it placed? Quick, man! You have wasted eighteen months. Give me no opinions, but facts.”
Thus admonished, scared somewhat by the barrister’s volcanic energy, Hume obeyed him.
“There is no material change in the room,” he said. “The secretaire is the same. You see, here is the drawer which was broken open. It bears the marks of the implement used to force the lock. I think I sat in this chair, or one like it. It was placed here. My face was turned towards the fire, yet in my dream I was looking through the centre window. The Japanese sword rested here. I showed you where Alan’s body was found.”
The young man darted about the room to illustrate each sentence. Brett followed his words and actions without comment. He grabbed his hat and stick.
“We will return later in the day,” he said. “Let us go at once and call on Mrs. Eastham.”
“Mrs. Eastham! Why?”
“Because I want to see Miss Helen Layton. The old lady can send for her.”
Hume needed no urging. He could not walk fast enough. They had gone a hundred yards from the house when Brett suddenly stopped and checked his companion.
Behind the yew trees on the left, and rendered invisible by a stout hedge, a man was running—running at top speed, with the labouring breath of one unaccustomed to the exercise. The barrister sprang over the strip of turf, passed among the trees, and plunged into the hedge regardless of thorns. He came back instantly.
“There is a footpath across the park, leading towards the lodge gates. Where does it come out?” he asked, speaking rapidly in a low tone.
“It enters the road near the avenue, close to the gates. It leads from a farmhouse.”
“A lady is walking through the park towards the lodge. Capella is running to intercept her. Come! We may hear something.”
Brett set off at a rapid pace along the turf. Hume followed, and soon they were near the lodge. Mrs. Crowe saw them, and came out.
“Stop her!” gasped Brett.
Hume signalled the woman not to open the gate. She watched them with open-mouthed curiosity. The barrister slowed down and quietly made his way to the leafy angle where the avenue hedge joined that which shut off the park from the road.
He held up a warning hand. Hume stepped warily behind him, and both men looked through a portion of the hedge where briars were supplanted by hazel bushes.
Capella was standing panting near a stile. A girl, dressed in muslin, and wearing a large straw hat, was approaching.
“Great Heavens! It is Helen!” exclaimed Hume.
Brett grasped his shoulder.
“Restrain yourself,” he whispered earnestly. “Luckily, Capella has not heard you. I regret the necessity which makes us eavesdroppers, but it is a fortunate accident, all the same. Not a word! Remember what is at stake.”
They could not see the Italian’s face. His back was heaving from the violence of his exertion. Miss Layton was walking rapidly towards the stile. Obviously she had perceived the waiting man, and she was not pleased.
Her pretty face, flushed and sunburnt, wore the strained aspect of a woman annoyed, but trying to be civil.
It was she who took the initiative.
“Good day, Mr. Capella,” she said pleasantly. “Why on earth did you run so fast?”
“Because I wished to be here before you, Miss Layton,” replied the man, his voice tremulous with excitement.
“Then I wish I had known, because I could have beaten you easily if you meant to race me.”
“That was not my object.”
“Well, now you have attained it, whatever it may have been, please allow me to get over the stile. I will be late for luncheon. My father wished me to ascertain how Farmer Burton is progressing after his spill. He was thrown from his dog-cart whilst coming from the Bury St. Edmund’s fair.”
It was easy for the listeners behind the hedge to gather that the girl’s affable manner was affected. She was really somewhat alarmed. Her eyes wandered to the high road to see if anyone was approaching, and she kept at some distance from the Italian.
“Do not play with me, Nellie,” said Capella, in agonised accents. “I am consumed with love of you. Can you not, at least, give me your pity?”
“Mr. Capella,” she cried, and none but one blind to all save his own passionate desires could fail to note her lofty disdain, “how can you be so base as to use such language to me?”
“Base! To love you!”
“Again I say it—base and unmanly. What have I done that you should venture to so insult your charming wife, not to speak of the insult to myself? When you so far forgot yourself a fortnight ago as to hint at your outrageous ideas regarding me, I forced myself to remember that you were not an Englishman, that perhaps in your country there may be a social code which permits a man to dishonour his home and to annoy a defenceless woman. I cannot forgive you a second time. Let me pass! Let me pass, I tell you, or I will strike you!”
Brett, in his admiration for the spirited girl who, notwithstanding her protestations, seemed to be anything but “defenceless,” momentarily forgot his companion.
A convulsive tightening of Hume’s muscles, preparatory to a leap through the hedge, warned him in time.
“Idiot!” he whispered, as he clutched him again.
Were not the others so taken up with the throbbing influences of the moment they must have heard the rustling of the leaves. But they paid little heed to external affairs. The Italian was speaking.
“Nellie,” he said, “you will drive me mad. But listen, carissima. If I may not love you, I can at least defend you. David Hume-Frazer, the man who murdered my wife’s brother, has returned, and openly boasts that you are waiting to marry him.”
“Boasts! To whom, pray?”
“To me. I heard him say this not fifteen minutes since.”
“Where? You do not know him. He could not be here without my knowledge.”
“Then it is true. You do intend to marry this unconvicted felon?”
“Mr. Capella, I really think you are what English people call ‘cracked.’”
“But you believe me—that this man has come to Beechcroft?”
“It may be so. He has good reasons, doubtless, for keeping his presence here a secret. Whatever they may be, I shall soon know them.”
“Helen, he is not worthy of you. He cannot give you a love fierce as mine. Nay, I will not be repelled. Hear me. My wife is dying. I will be free in a few months. Bid me to hope. I will not trouble you. I will go away, but I swear, if you marry Frazer, neither he nor you will long enjoy your happiness!”
The girl made no reply, but sprang towards the stile in sheer desperation. Capella strove to take her in his arms, not indeed with intent to offer her any violence; but she met his lover-like ardour with such a vigorous buffet that he lost his temper.
He caught her. She had almost surmounted the stile, but her dress hampered her movements. The Italian, vowing his passion in an ardent flow of words, endeavoured to kiss her.
Then, with a sigh, for he would have preferred to avoid an open rupture, Brett let go his hold on Hume. Indeed, if he had not done so, there must have been a fight on both sides of the hedge.
He turned away at once to light a cigarette. What followed immediately had no professional interest for him.
But he could not help hearing Helen’s shriek of delighted surprise, and certain other sounds which denoted that Giovanni was being used as a football by his near relative by marriage.
Mrs. Crowe came out of her cottage.
“What’s a-goin’ on in the park, sir?” she inquired anxiously.
“A great event,” he said. “Faust is kicking Mephistopheles.”
“Drat them colts!” she cried, adding, after taking thought; “but we haven’t any horses of them names, sir.”
“No! You surprise me. They are of the best Italian pedigree.”
Meanwhile, he was achieving his object, which was to drive Mrs. Crowe back towards the wicket.
Helen’s voice came to them shrilly:
“That will do, Davie! Do you hear me?”
“Why, bless my ’eart, there’s Miss Layton,” said Mrs. Crowe.
“What a fine little boy this is!” exclaimed Brett, stooping over a curly-haired urchin. “Is he the oldest?”
“Good gracious, sir, no. He’s the youngest.”
“Dear me, I would not have thought so. You must have been married very early. Here, my little man, see what you can buy for half-a-crown.”
“What a nice gentleman he is, to be sure,” thought the lodge-keeper’s wife, when Brett passed through the smaller gate, assured that the struggle in the park had ended.
“Just fancy ’im a-thinkin’ Jimmy was the eldest, when I will be a grandmother come August if all goes well wi’ Kate.”
The barrister signed to the groom to wait, and joined the young couple, who now appeared in the roadway. A haggard, dishevelled, and furious man burst through the avenue hedge and ran across the drive.
“Mrs. Crowe,” he almost screamed, “do you see those two men there?”
“Yes, sir.”
The good woman was startled by her master’s sudden appearance and his excited state.
“They are never to be admitted to the grounds again. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
Capella turned to rush away up the avenue, but he was compelled to limp. Mrs. Crowe watched him wonderingly, and tried to piece together in her mind the queer sounds and occurrences of the last two minutes.
She had not long been in the cottage when the butler arrived.
“You let two gentlemen in a while ago?” he said.
“I did.”
“One was Mr. David and the other a Mr. Brett?”
“Oh, was that the tall gentleman’s name?”
“I expect so. Well, here’s the missus’s written order that whenever they want to come to the ’ouse or go anywheres in the park it’s O.K.”
Mrs. Crowe was wise enough to keep her own counsel, but when the butler retired, she said:
“Then I’ll obey the missus, an’ master can settle it with her. I don’t hold by Eye-talians, anyhow.”
Helen was very much upset by the painful scene which had just been enacted. Its vulgarity appalled her. In a little old-world hamlet like Sleagill, a riotous cow or frightened horse supplied sensation for a week. What would happen when it became known that the rector’s daughter had been attacked by the Squire of Beechcroft in the park meadow, and saved from his embraces only after a vigorous struggle, in which her defender was David Hume-Frazer, concerning whom the villagers still spoke with bated breath?
Of course, the girl imagined that many people must have witnessed the occurrence. The appearance of Brett, of the waiting groom, and of a chance labourer who now strode up the village street, led her to think so.
She did not realise that the whole affair had barely lasted a minute, that Brett was Hume’s friend, the man-servant a stranger who had seen nothing and heard little, whilst the villager only wondered, when he touched his cap, “why Miss Layton was so flustered like.”
Brett attributed her agitation to its right cause. He knew that this healthy, high-minded, and athletic young woman went under no fear of Capella and his ravings.
“What happened when you jumped the hedge?” he said to Hume.
“I handled that scoundrel somewhat roughly,” was the answer. “It was Nellie here who begged for mercy on his account.”
“Ah, well, the incident ended very pleasantly. No one saw what happened save the principals, a fortunate thing in itself. We want to prevent a nine days’ wonder just now.”
“Are you quite sure?” asked Miss Layton, overjoyed at this expression of opinion, and secretly surprised at the interest taken by the barrister in the affair, for Hume had not as yet found time to tell her his friend’s name.
“Quite sure, Miss Layton,” he said, with the smile which made him such a prompt favourite with women. “I had nothing to do but observe the mise-en-scène. The stage was quite clear for the chief actors. And now, may I make a suggestion? The longer we remain here the more likely are we to attract observation. Mr. Hume and I are going to call on Mrs. Eastham. May we expect you in an hour’s time?”
“Can’t you come in with us now?” exclaimed David eagerly.
She laughed excitedly, being yet flurried. The sudden appearance of her lover tried her nerves more than the Italian’s passionate avowal.
“No, indeed,” she cried. “I must go home. My father will forget all about his lunch otherwise, and I am afraid—I—w—ant to cry!”
Without another word she hurried off towards the rectory.
“My dear fellow,” murmured Brett to the disconsolate Hume, “don’t you understand? She cannot bear the constraint imposed by my presence at this moment, nor could she meet Mrs. Eastham with any degree of composure. Now, this afternoon she will return a mere iceberg. Mrs. Eastham, I am sure, has tact. I am going to the Hall. You two will be left alone for hours.”
He turned aside to arrange with the groom concerning the care of the horse, as they would be detained some time in the village. Then the two men approached Mrs. Eastham’s residence.
That good person, a motherly old lady of over sixty, was not only surprised but delighted by the advent of David Hume.
“My dear boy,” she cried, advancing to meet him with outstretched hands when he entered the morning-room. “What fortunate wind has blown you here?”
“I can hardly tell you, auntie,” he said—both Helen and he adopted the pleasing fiction of a relationship that did not exist—“you must ask Mr. Brett.”
Thus appealed to, the barrister set forth, in a few explicit words, the object of their visit.
“I hope and believe you will succeed,” said Mrs. Eastham impulsively. “Providence has guided your steps here at this hour. You cannot imagine how miserable that man Capella makes me.”
“Why?” cried Hume, darting a look of surprise at Brett.
“Because he is simply pestering Nellie with his attentions. There! I must speak plainly. He has gone to extremes that can no longer be misinterpreted. In our small community, Mr. Brett,” she explained, “though we dearly love a little gossip, we are slow to believe that a man married to such a charming if somewhat unconventional woman as Margaret Hume-Frazer—I cannot train my tongue to call her Mrs. Capella—would deliberately neglect his wife and dare to demonstrate his unlawful affection for another woman, especially such a girl as Helen Layton.”
“How long has this been going on?” inquired Brett, for Hume was too furious to speak.
“For some months, but it is only a fortnight ago since Helen first complained of it to me I promptly told Mr. Capella that I could not receive him again at my house. He discovered that Nellie came here a good deal, and managed to call about the same time as she did. Then he found that she was interested in Japanese art, and as he is really clever in that respect—”
“Clever,” interrupted the barrister. “Do you mean that he understands lacquer work, Satsuma ware, painting or inlaying? Is he a connoisseur or a student?”
“It is all Greek to me!” exclaimed the old lady, “but unquestionably the bits of china and queer carvings he often brought here were very beautiful. Nellie did not like him personally, but she could not deny his knowledge and enthusiasm. Margaret, too, used to invite her to the Hall, for Miss Layton has great taste as an amateur gardener, Mr. Brett. But this friendship suddenly ceased. Mr. Capella became very strange and gloomy in his manner. At last Nellie told me that the wretched man had dared to utter words of love to her, hinting that his wife could not live long, and that he would come in for her fortune. Now, as my poor girl has been the most faithful soul that ever lived, never for an instant doubting that some day the cloud would lift from Davie, you may imagine what a shock this was to her.”
“Mrs. Eastham,” said Brett, suddenly switching the conversation away from the Italian’s fantasy, “you are well acquainted with all the circumstances connected with Sir Alan’s murder. Have you formed any theory about the crime, its motive, or its possible author?”
“God forgive me if I do any man an injury, but in these last few days I have had my suspicions,” she exclaimed.
“Tell me your reasons.”
“It arose out of a chance remark by Nellie. She was discussing with me her inexplicable antipathy to Mr. Capella, even during the time when they were outwardly good friends. She said that once he showed her a Japanese sword, a most wonderful piece of workmanship, with veins of silver and gold let into the handle and part of the blade. To the upper part of the scabbard was attached a knife—a small dagger—similar—”
“Yes, I understand. An implement like that used to kill Sir Alan Hume-Frazer.”
“Exactly. Nellie at first hardly realised its significance. Then she hastily told Capella to take it away, but not before she noticed that he seemed to understand the dreadful thing. It is fastened in its sheath by a hidden spring, and he knew exactly how to open it. Any person not accustomed to such weapons would endeavour to pull it out by main force.”
Brett did not press Mrs. Eastham to pursue her theory. It was plain that she regarded the Italian as a man who might conceivably be the murderer of his wife’s brother. This was enough for feminine logic.
Hume, too, shared the same belief, and had not scrupled to express it openly.
There were, it was true, reasons in plenty, why Capella should have committed this terrible deed. He was, presumably, affianced to Margaret at the time. Apparently her father’s will had contemplated the cutting down of her annual allowance. The young heir had, on the other hand, made up the deficit. But why did these artificial restrictions exist? Why were precautions taken by the father to diminish his daughter’s income? She had been extravagant. Both father and brother quarrelled with her on this point. Indeed, there was a slight family disturbance with reference to it during Sir Alan’s last visit to London. Was Capella mixed up with it?
At last there was a glimmering perception of motive for an otherwise fiendishly irrational act. Did it tend to incriminate the Italian?
A summons to luncheon dispelled the momentary gloom of their thoughts. Before the meal ended Miss Layton joined them.
Brett looked at his watch. “Fifty minutes!” he said.
Then they all laughed, except Mrs. Eastham, who marvelled at the coolness of the meeting between the girl and David. But the old lady was quick-witted.
“Have you met before?” she cried.
“Dearest,” said the girl, kissing her; “do you mean to say they have not told you what happened in the park?”
“That will require a special sitting,” said Brett gaily. “Meanwhile, I am going to the Hall. I suppose you do not care to accompany me, Hume?”
“I do not.”
The reply was so emphatic that it created further merriment.
“Well, tell me quickly what this new secret is,” exclaimed Mrs. Eastham, “because in five minutes I must have a long talk with my cook. She has to prepare pies and pastry sufficient to feed nearly a hundred school children next Monday, and it is a matter of much calculation.”
Brett took his leave.
“I knew that good old soul would be tactful,” he said to himself. “Now I wonder how Winter made such a colossal mistake as to imagine that Hume murdered his cousin. He was sure of the affections of a delightful girl; he could not succeed to the property; he has declined to take up the title. What reason could he have for committing such a crime?”
Then a man walked up the road—a man dressed like a farmer or grazier, rotund, strongly-built, cheerful-looking. He halted opposite Mrs. Eastham’s house, where the barrister still stood drawing on his gloves on the doorstep.
“Yes,” said Brett aloud, “you are an egregious ass, Winter.”
“Why, Mr. Brett?” asked the unabashed detective. “Isn’t the make-up good?”
“It is the make-up that always leads you astray. You never theorise above the level of the Police Gazette.”
Mr. Winter yielded to not unnatural annoyance. With habitual caution, he glanced around to assure himself that no other person was within earshot; then he said vehemently:
“I tell you, Mr. Brett, that swine killed Sir Alan Hume-Frazer.”
“You use strong language.”
“Not stronger than he deserves.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I heard he was in London, and watched him. I saw him go to your chambers and guessed what was up, so I came down here to see you and tell you what I know.”
“Out of pure good-nature?”
“You can believe it or not, Mr. Brett. It is the truth.”
“He has been tried and acquitted. He cannot be tried again. Does Scotland Yard—”
“I’m on my holidays.”
Brett laughed heartily.
“I see!” he cried. “A ’bus-driver’s holiday! For how long?”
“Fourteen days.”
“You are nothing if not professional. I suppose it was not your first offence, or they might have let you off with a fine.”
The detective enjoyed this departmental joke. He grinned broadly.
“Anyhow, Mr. Brett,” he said, “you and I have been engaged on too many smart bits of work for me to stand quietly by and let you be made a fool of.”
The barrister came nearer, and said, in a low tone:
“Winter, you have never been more mistaken in your life. Now, attend to my words. If you help me you will, in the first place, be well paid for your services. Secondly, you will be able to place your hand on the true murderer of Sir Alan Hume-Frazer, or I will score my first failure. Thirdly, Scotland Yard will give you another holiday, and I can secure you some shooting in Scotland. What say you?”
The detective looked thoughtful. Long experience had taught him not to argue with Brett when the latter was in earnest.
“I will do anything in my power,” he said, “but there is more in this business than perhaps you are aware of—more than ever transpired at the Assizes.”
“Quite so, and a good deal that has transpired since. Now. Winter, don’t argue, there’s a good fellow. Go and engage the landlord of the local inn in a discussion on crops. I am off to Beechcroft Hall. Mr. Hume and I will call for you on our way back to Stowmarket. In our private sitting-room at the hotel there I will explain everything.”
They parted. Brett was promptly admitted by Mrs. Crowe, and walked rapidly up the avenue.
Winter watched his retreating figure.
“He’s smart, I know he’s smart,” mused the detective. “But he doesn’t know everything about this affair. He doesn’t know, I’ll be bound, that David Hume-Frazer waited for his cousin that night outside the library. I didn’t know it—worse luck!—until after he was acquitted. And he doesn’t know that Miss Nellie Layton didn’t reach home until 1.30 a.m., though she left the ball at 12.15, and her house is, so to speak, a minute’s walk distant. And she was in a carriage. Oh, there’s more in this case than meets the eye! I can’t say which would please me most, to find out the real murderer, if Hume didn’t do it, or prove Mr. Brett to be in the wrong!”
Brett did not hurry on his way to the Hall. Already things were in a whirl, and the confusion was so great that he was momentarily unable to map out a definite line of action.
The relations between Capella and his wife were evidently strained almost to breaking point, and it was this very fact which caused him the greatest perplexity.
They had been married little more than six months. They were an extraordinarily handsome couple, apparently well suited to each other by temperament and mutual sympathies, whilst their means were ample enough to permit them to live under any conditions they might choose, and gratify personal hobbies to the fullest extent.
What, then, could have happened to divide them so completely?
Surely not Capella’s new-born passion for Helen Layton. Not even a hot-blooded Southerner could be guilty of such deliberate rascality, such ineffable folly, during the first few months after his marriage to a beautiful and wealthy wife.
No, this hypothesis must be rejected. Margaret Capella had drifted apart from her husband almost as soon as they reached England on their return as man and wife. Capella, miserable and disillusioned, buried alive in a country place—for such must existence in Beechcroft mean to a man of his inclinations—had discovered a startling contrast between his passionate and moody spouse, and the bright, pleasant-mannered girl whose ill-fortune it was to create discord between the inmates of the Hall.
This theory did not wholly exonerate the Italian, but it explained a good deal. The barrister saw no cause as yet to suspect Capella of the young baronet’s murder. Were he guilty of that ghastly crime, his motive must have been to secure for himself the position he was now deliberately imperilling—all for a girl’s pretty face.
The explanation would not suffice. Brett had seen much that is hidden from public ken in the vagaries of criminals, but he had never yet met a man wholly bad, and at the same time in full possession of his senses.
To adopt the hasty judgment arrived at by Hume and Mrs. Eastham, Capella must be deemed capable of murdering his wife’s brother, of bringing about the death of his wife after securing the reversion of her vast property to himself, and of falling in love with Helen—all in the same breath. This species of criminality was only met with in lunatics, and Capella impressed the barrister as an emotional personage, capable of supreme good as of supreme evil, but quite sane.
The question to be solved was this: Why did Capella and his wife quarrel in the first instance? Perhaps, that way, light might come.
He asked a footman if Mrs. Capella would receive him. The man glanced at his card.
“Yes, sir,” he said at once. “Madam gave instructions that if either you or Mr. David called you were to be taken to her boudoir, where she awaits you.”
The room was evidently on the first floor, for the servant led him up the magnificent oak staircase that climbed two sides of the reception hall.
But this was fated to be a day of interruptions. The barrister, when he reached the landing, was confronted by the Italian.
“A word with you, Mr. Brett,” was the stiff greeting given to him.
“Certainly. But I am going to Mrs. Capella’s room.”
“She can wait. She does not know you are here. James, remain outside until Mr. Brett returns. Then conduct him to your mistress.”
Capella’s tone admitted of no argument, nor was it necessary to protest. Brett always liked people to talk in the way they deemed best suited to their own interests. Without any expostulation, therefore, he followed his limping host into a luxuriously furnished dressing-room.
Capella closed the door, and placed himself gently on a couch.
“Does your friend fight?” he said, fixing his dark eyes, blazing with anger, intently on the other.
“That is a matter on which your opinion would probably be more valuable than mine.”
“Spare me your wit. You know well what I mean. Will he meet me on the Continent and settle our quarrel like a gentleman, not like a hired bravo?”
“What quarrel?”
“Mr. Brett, you are not so stupid. David Hume, notwithstanding his past, may still be deemed a man of honour in some respects. He treated me grossly this morning. Will he fight me, or must I treat him as a cur?”
Brett, without invitation, seated himself. He produced a cigarette and lit it, adding greatly to Capella’s irritation by his provoking calmness.
“Really,” he said at last, “you amuse me.”
“Silence!” he cried imperatively, when the Italian would have broken out into a torrent of expostulations. “Listen to me, you vain fool!”
This method of address had the rare merit of achieving its object. Capella was reduced to a condition of speechless rage.
“You consider yourself the aggrieved person, I suppose,” went on the Englishman, subsiding into a state of contemptuous placidity. “You neglect your wife, make love to an honourable and pure-minded girl, stoop to the use of unworthy taunts and even criminal innuendos, lose such control of your passion as to lay sacrilegious hands upon Helen Layton, and yet you resent the well-merited punishment administered to you by her affianced husband. Were I a surgeon, Mr. Capella, I might take an anatomical interest in your brain. As it is, I regard you as a psychological study in latter-day blackguardism. Do you understand me?”
“Perfectly. You have not yet answered my question. Will Hume fight?”
“I should say that nothing would give him greater pleasure.”
“Then you will arrange this matter? I can send a friend to you?”
“And if you do I will send the police to you, thus possibly anticipating matters somewhat.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that my sole purpose in life just now is to lay hands on the man who killed Sir Alan Hume-Frazer. Until that end is achieved, I will take good care that your crude ideas of honour are dealt with, as they were to-day, by the toe of a boot.”
Capella was certainly a singular person. He listened unmoved to Brett’s threats and insults. He gave that snarling smile of his, and toyed impatiently with his moustache.
“Your object in life does not concern me. Your courts tried their best to hang the man who was responsible for his cousin’s death, and failed. I take it you decline this proffered duel?”
“Yes.”
“Then I will fight David Hume in my own way. You have rejected the fair alternative on his behalf. Caramba! We shall see now who wins. He will never marry Helen.”
“What did you mean just now when you said that he was ‘responsible for his cousin’s death’? Is that an Italian way of describing a cold-blooded murder?”
Capella leaned back and snarled silently again. It was a pity he had cultivated that trick. It spoilt an otherwise classically regular set of features.
“James!” he shouted.
The footman entered.
“Take this gentleman to your mistress. I have done with him.”
“For the present, James,” said Brett.
The astonished servant led him along a corridor and knocked at a door hidden by a silk curtain. Mrs. Capella rose to receive her visitor. She was very pale now, but quite calm and dignified in manner.
“Davie did not come with you?” she said when Brett was seated near to her in an alcove formed by an oriel window.
“No. He is with Miss Layton.”
“Ah, I am not sorry, I prefer to talk with you alone.”
“It is perhaps better. Your cousin is impulsive in some respects, though self-contained enough in others.”
“It may be so. I like him, although we have not seen much of each other since we were children. I knew him this morning principally on account of his likeness to Alan. But you are his friend, Mr. Brett, and I can discuss with you matters I would not care to broach with him. He is with Helen Layton now, you say?”
“Yes, and let me add an explanation. Those two young people are devoted to each other. No power on earth could separate them.”
“Why do you tell me that?”
“Because I think you wished to be assured of it?”
“You are clever, Mr. Brett. If you can interpret a criminal’s designs as well as you can read a woman’s heart you must be a terror to evil-doers.”
A slight colour came into her cheeks. The barrister leaned forward, his hands clasped and arms resting on his knees.
“I have just seen your husband,” he said.
She exhibited no marked sign of emotion but he thought he detected a frightened look in her eyes.
“Again I ask,” she exclaimed, “why do you tell me?”
“The reason is obvious. You ought to know all that goes on. There was a quarrel this morning between him and David Hume. Your husband wished me to arrange a duel. I promised him a visit from the police if I heard any more of such nonsense.”
“A duel! More bloodshed!” she almost whispered.
“Do not have any alarm for either of them. They are quite safe. I will guarantee so much, at any rate. But your husband is a somewhat curious person. He is prone to strong and sudden hatreds—and attachments.”
Margaret pressed her hands to her face. She could no longer bear the torture of make-believe quiescence.
“Oh, what shall I do!” she wailed. “I am the most miserable woman in England to-day, and I might have been the happiest.”
“Why are you miserable, Mrs. Capella?” asked Brett gently.
“I cannot tell you. Perhaps it is owing to my own folly. Are you sure that David and Helen intend to get married?”
“Yes.”
“Then, for Heaven’s sake, let the wedding take place. Let them leave Beechcroft and its associations for ever.”
“That cannot be until Hume’s character is cleared from the odium attached to it.”
“You mean my brother’s death. But that has been settled by the courts. David was declared ‘Not guilty.’ Surely that will suffice! No good purpose can be gained by reopening an inquiry closed by the law.”
“I think you are a little unjust to your cousin in this matter, Mrs. Capella. He and his future wife feel very grievously the slur cast upon his name. You know perfectly well that if half the people in this county were asked, ‘Who killed Sir Alan Hume-Frazer?’ they would say ‘David Hume.’ The other half would shake their heads in dubiety, and prefer not to be on visiting terms with David Hume and his wife. No; your brother was killed in a particularly foul way. He died needlessly, so far as we can learn. His death should be avenged, and this can only be done by tracking his murderer and ruthlessly bringing the wretch to justice. Are not these your own sentiments when divested of all conflicting desires?”
Brett’s concluding sentence seemed to petrify his hearer.
“In what way can I help you?” she murmured, and the words appeared to come from a heart of stone.
“There are many items I want cleared up, but I do not wish to distress you unduly. Can you not refer me to your solicitors, for instance? I imagine they will be able to answer all my queries.”
“No. I prefer to deal with the affair myself.”
“Very well. I will commence with you personally. Why did you quarrel with your brother in London a few days before his death?”
“Because I was living extravagantly. Not only that, but he disapproved of my manner of life. In those days I was headstrong and wilful. I loved a Bohemian existence combined with absurd luxury, or rather, a wildly useless expenditure of money. No one who knows me now could picture me then. Yet now I am good and unhappy. Then I was wicked, in some people’s eyes, and happy. Strange, is it not?”
“Not altogether so unusual as you may think. Was any other person interested in what I may term the result of the dispute between your brother and yourself?”
“That is a difficult question to answer. I was very careless in money matters, but it is clear that the curtailment of my rate of living from £15,000 to £5,000 per annum must make considerable difference to all connected with me.”
“Had you been living at the former rate?”
“Yes, since my father’s death. What annoyed Alan was the fact that I had borrowed from money-lenders.”
“Who else knew of your disagreement with him besides these money-lenders and his solicitors?”
“All my friends. I used to laugh at his serious ways, when I, older and much more experienced in some respects, treated life as a tiresome joke. But none of my friends were commissioned to murder my brother so that I might obtain the estate, Mr. Brett.”
“Not by you,” he said thoughtfully.
He knew well that to endeavour to get Margaret to implicate her husband would merely render her an active opponent. She loved this Italian scamp. She was profoundly thankful that David Hume had come back to claim the hand of Helen Layton, the woman who had been the unwilling object of Capella’s wayward affections. She would be only too glad to give half her property to the young couple if they would settle in New Zealand or Peru—far from Beechcroft.
Yet it was impossible to believe that she could love a man whom she suspected of murdering her brother. Why, then, had husband and wife drifted apart? Assuredly the pieces of the puzzle were inextricably mixed.
“Where did you marry Mr. Capella?” asked Brett suddenly.
“At Naples—a civil ceremony, before the Mayor, and registered by the British Consul.”
“Had you been long acquainted”
“I met him, oddly enough, in Covent Garden Theatre, the night my brother was killed”
It was now Brett’s turn to be startled.
“Are you quite certain of this?” he asked, his surprise at the turn taken by the conversation almost throwing him off his guard.
“Positive. Were you led to believe that Giovanni was the murderer?”
Her voice was cold, impassive, marvellously under control. It warned him, threw him back into the safe rôle of Hume’s adviser and friend.
“I am led to believe nothing at present,” he said slowly. “This inquiry is, as yet, only twenty-four hours old so far as I am concerned. I am seeking information. When I am gorged with facts I proceed to digest them.”
“Well, what I tell you is true. There are no less than ten people, all living, I have no doubt, who can testify to its correctness. I had a box at the Fancy Dress Ball that New Year’s Eve. I invited nine guests. One of them, an attaché at the Italian Embassy, brought Giovanni and introduced him to me. We were together from midnight until 4.30 a.m. Whilst poor Alan was lying here dead, I was revelling at a bal masqué. Do you think I am likely to forget the circumstances?”
The icy tones thrilled with pitiful remembrance. But the barrister’s task required the unsparing use of the probe. He determined, once and for all, to end an unpleasant scene.
“Will you tell me why you and your husband have, shall we say, disagreed so soon after your marriage? You were formed by Providence and nature to be mated. What has driven you apart?”
The woman flushed scarlet under this direct inquiry.
“I cannot tell you,” she said brokenly, “but the cause—in no way—concerns—either my brother’s death—or David’s innocence. It is personal—between Giovanni and myself. In God’s good time, it may be put right.”
Brett, singularly enough, was a man of quick impulse. He was moved now by a profound pity for the woman who thus bared her heart to him.
“Thank you for your candour, Mrs. Capella,” he exclaimed, with a fervour that evidently touched her. “May I ask one more question, and I have done with a most unpleasant ordeal. Do you suspect any person of being your brother’s assassin?”
“No,” she said. “Indeed I do not.”
Hume and Winter did not meet on terms that might be strictly described as cordial.
Brett, on quitting the Hall, had surrendered himself to a spell of vacant bewilderment. He haled the unwilling Hume from Helen’s society, and picked up the detective at the Wheat Sheaf Inn. Then the barrister, from sheer need of mental relief, determined to have some fun with them.
“You two ought to know each other,” he said good-humouredly. “At one time you took keen interest in matters of mutual concern. Allow me to introduce you. Hume—this is Mr. Winter, of Scotland Yard.”
David was quite unprepared for the meeting.
“What?” he exclaimed, his upper lip stiffening, “the man who concocted all sorts of imaginary evidence against me!”
“‘Concocted’ is not the right word, nor ‘imaginary’ either,” growled Winter.
“Quite right,” said Brett. “Really, Hume, you should be more careful in your choice of language. Had Winter been as careless in his statements at the Assizes, he would certainly have hanged you.”
Hume was too happy, after a prolonged tête-à-tête with his beloved, to harbour malice against any person.
“What are we supposed to do—shake hands?” he inquired blandly.
“It might be a good preliminary to a better understanding of one another. You think Winter is an unscrupulous ruffian. He described you to me as a swine not two hours ago. Now, you are both wrong. Winter is the best living police detective, and a most fair-minded one. He will be a valuable ally. Before many days are over you will be deeply in his debt in every sense of the word. On the other hand, you, Hume, are a much-wronged man, whom Winter must help to regain his rightful position. This is one of the occasions when Justice is compelled to take the bandage off her eyes. She may be impartial, but she is often blind. Now be friends, and let us start from that basis.”
Silently the two men exchanged a hearty grip.
“Excellent!” cried the barrister. “Hume, take Winter with you in front. I will seat myself beside the groom, and please oblige me, both of you, by not addressing a word to me between here and Stowmarket.”
Hume and the detective got along comfortably once the ice was broken. Naturally, they steered clear of all reference to the tragedy in the presence of the servant. Their talk dealt chiefly with sporting matters.
Brett, carried swiftly along the level road, kept his eyes fixed on Beechcroft and its contiguous hamlet until they vanished in the middle distance.
“This is the most curious inquiry I was ever engaged in,” he communed. “Winter, of course, will fasten on to Capella like a horse leech when he knows the facts. Yet Capella is neither a coward nor an ordinary villain. For some ridiculous reason, I have a sneaking sympathy with him. Had he stormed and blustered when I pitched into him to-day I would have thought less of him. And his wife! What mysterious workings of Fate brought those two together and then disunited them? They become fascinated one with the other whilst the brother’s corpse is still palpitating beneath that terrible stroke. They get married, with not unreasonable haste, but no sooner do they reach Beechcroft, a house of evil import if ever bricks and mortar had such a character, than they are driven asunder by some malign influence.
“And now, after eighteen months, I am asked to take up the tangled clues, if such may be said to exist. It is a difficult, perhaps an impossible, undertaking. Yet if I have done so much in a day, what may not happen in a fortnight!”
Long afterwards, recalling that soliloquy, he wondered whether or not, were he suddenly endowed with the gift of prophecy, he would, nevertheless, have pursued his quest. He never could tell.
Once securely entrenched in a private sitting-room of the Stowmarket Hotel, the three men began to discuss crime and tobacco.
Mr. Winter commenced by being confidential and professional.
“Now, Mr. Hume,” he said, “as misunderstandings have been cleared, to some extent, by Mr. Brett’s remarks, I will, with your permission, ask you a few questions.”
“Fire away.”
“In the first place, your counsel tried to prove—did prove, in fact—that you walked straight from the ball-room to the Hall, sat down in the library, and did not move from your chair until Fergusson, the butler, told you how he had found Sir Alan’s body on the lawn.”
“Exactly.”
“So if a man comes forward now and swears that he watched you for nearly ten minutes standing in the shadow of the yews on the left of the house, he will not be telling the truth?”
“That is putting it mildly.”
“Yet there is such a witness in existence, and I am certain he is not a liar in this matter.”
“What!”
Brett and Hume ejaculated the word simultaneously; the one surprised, because he knew how careful Winter was in matters of fact, the other indignant at the seeming disbelief in his statement.
“Please, gentlemen,” appealed the detective, secretly gratified by the sensation he caused, “wait until I have finished. If I did not fully accept Mr. Brett’s views on this remarkable case, I would not be sitting here this minute. My conscience would not permit it”
“Be virtuous, Winter, but not too virtuous,” broke in Brett drily.
“There you go again, sir, questioning my motives. But I am of a forgiving disposition. Now, there cannot be the slightest doubt that a poacher named John Wise, better known as ‘Rabbit Jack,’ who resides in this town, chose that New Year’s Eve as an excellent time to net the meadows behind the Hall. He had heard about Mrs. Eastham’s dance, and knew that on such a night the estate keepers would have more liking for fun with the coachmen and maids than for game-watching. He entered the park soon after midnight, and saw a gentleman walk up the avenue towards the house. He waited a few minutes, and crept quietly along the side of the hedge—in the park, of course. Being winter time, the trees and bushes were bare, and he was startled to see the same gentleman, with his coat buttoned up, standing in the shade of the yews close to the Hall. ‘Rabbit Jack’ naturally thought he had been spotted. He gripped his lurcher’s collar and stood still for nearly ten minutes. Then it occurred to him that he was mistaken. He had not been seen, so he stole off towards the plantation and started operations. He is a first-rate poacher, and always works alone. About three o’clock he was alarmed by a policeman’s lantern—the search of the grounds after the murder, you see—and made off. He entered Stowmarket on the far side of the town, and ran into a policeman’s arms. They fought for twenty minutes. The P.C. won, and ‘Rabbit Jack’ got six months’ hard labour for being in unlawful possession of game and assaulting the police. Consequently, he never heard a syllable about the ‘Stowmarket Mystery,’ as this affair was called by the Press, until long after Mr. Hume’s second trial and acquittal. Yet the first thing ‘Rabbit Jack’ did after his release was to go straight to the police and tell them what he had seen. I think, Mr. Hume, that even you will admit a good deal depended on the result of the fight between the poacher and the bobby, for ‘Rabbit Jack’ described a man of your exact appearance and dressed as you were that night.”
There was silence for a moment when Winter ended his recital.
“It is evident,” said Brett, otherwise engaged in making smoke-rings, “that ‘Rabbit Jack’ saw the real murderer.”
“A man like me—in evening dress! Who on earth could he be?” was Hume’s natural exclamation.
“We must test this chap’s story,” said Brett.
“How?”
“Easily enough. There is a garden outside. Can you bring this human bunny here to-night?”
“I think so.”
“Very well. Stage him about nine o’clock. Anything else?”
Mr. Winter pondered a little while; then he addressed Hume hesitatingly:
“Does Mr. Brett know everything that happened after the murder?”
“I think so. Yes.”
“Everything! Say three-quarters of an hour afterwards?”
The effect of this remark on Hume was very pronounced. His habitual air of reserve gave place to a state of decided confusion.
“What are you hinting at?” he cried, striving hard to govern his voice.
“Well, it must out, sooner or later. Why did you go to meet Miss Helen Layton in the avenue about 1.30 a.m.—soon after Sir Alan’s body had been examined by the doctor?’
“Oh, damn it, man, how did you ascertain that?” groaned Hume.
“I knew it all along, but I did not see that it was very material to the case, and I wanted to keep the poor young lady’s name out of the affair as far as possible. I did not want to suggest that she was an accessory after the crime.”
Hume was blushing like a schoolboy. He glanced miserably at Brett, but the barrister was still puffing artistic designs in big and little rings.
“Very well. My reason for concealment disappears now,” he blurted out, for the young man was both vexed and ashamed. “That wretched night, after she returned home, Helen thought she had behaved foolishly in creating a scene. She put on a cloak, changed her shoes, and slipped back again to Mrs. Eastham’s, where she met Alan just coming away. She implored him to make up the quarrel with me. He apologised for his conduct, and promised to do the same to me when we met. He explained that other matters had upset his temper that day, and he had momentarily yielded to an irritated belief that everything was against him. Helen watched him enter the park; she pretended that she was going in to Mrs. Eastham’s. She could see the lighted windows of the library, and she wondered why he did not go inside, but imagined that at the distance she might easily be mistaken. At last she ran off to the rectory. Again she lingered in the garden, devoutly wishing that all might be well between Alan and me. Then she became conscious that something unusual had taken place, owing to the lights and commotion. For a long time she was at a loss to conjecture what could have happened. At last, yielding to curiosity, she came back to the lodge. The gates were wide open. Mrs. Eastham’s dance was still in progress. She is not a timid girl, so she walked boldly up the avenue until she met Fergusson, the butler, who was then going to tell Mrs. Eastham. When she heard his story she was too shocked to credit it, and asked him to bring me. I came. By that time I was beginning to realise that I might be implicated in the affair, and I begged her to return home at once, alone. She did so. Subsequently she asked me not to refer to the escapade, for obvious reasons. It was a woman’s little secret, Brett, and I was compelled to keep it.”
“Anything else, Winter?” demanded the barrister, wrapped in a cloud of his own creation.
“That is all, sir, except the way in which I heard of Miss Layton’s meeting with Mr. Hume.”
“Not through Fergusson, eh?”
“Not a bit. The old chap is as close as wax. He seems to think that a Hume-Frazer must die a violent death outside that library window, and if the cause of the trouble is another Hume-Frazer, it is their own blooming business, and no other person’s. Most extraordinary old chap. Have you met him?”
“No. Indeed, I am only just beginning to hear the correct details of the story.”
Hume winced, but passed no remark.
“Well, my information came through an anonymous letter.”
“You don’t say so! How interesting! Have you got it?”
“I brought it with me, for a reason other than that which actuates me now, I must confess.”
He produced a small envelope, frayed at the edges, and closely compressed. It bore the type-written address, “Police Office, Scotland Yard,” and the postal stamp was “West Strand, January 18, 9 p.m.”
Within, a small slip of paper, also typed, gave this message:—