Mary shot him a swift glance from under those long-lashed lids of hers. “What makes you think I have anything to tell you, Mr. Bathurst?” she asked.
He smiled one of his irresistibly-attractive smiles. “I think it’s a fairly safe conclusion to which to come. You want a consultation with me. You would hardly put it in that way if you required any information from me—would you—therefore, I imagine you have something to tell me. Am I wrong?”
She flung herself on to the edge of the billiard-table and sat there—dainty and well-shod. She was always as fit as a fiddle and better at games than a good many men. She played a smashing good game of tennis, was a steady bat and bowled quite a good ball—slow, with a deceptive flight that did a little bit both ways—was a good hand with a golf-club, and could make a hundred on the billiard-table in double quick time. As I’ve said before in this history—Mary Considine was a peach.
“No, you are not wrong, Mr. Bathurst. You are right, of course—but now that I’ve decided to tell it to you, and have arrived at the moment of the telling—I don’t know whether I should or whether it’s of the slightest importance—except to me—and—one other.”
She stopped and Anthony waited for her to continue.
It was plain to me, interested auditor that I was, that Mary was waiting for some sign of encouragement or approbation from Anthony—but it did not come. She glanced at him, but his eyes were inscrutable.
“You don’t help me much,” she said, rather deliciously. “You could—you know!”
“I would much prefer you to tell your story entirely in your own way. It is impossible for me, at this stage of the conversation, to judge whether it will possess any significance—please proceed.”
She looked rather aggrieved at this, and I wondered what was coming next.
“I haven’t told my father. I haven’t told my mother—the only person that knows is my sister, Helen—Mrs. Arkwright, you know—I told her soon after it happened. I have had a talk with her over it, Mr. Bathurst, and she approves of my telling you.” She clasped her hands. “‘Nil nisi bonum de mortuis est,’ they say, don’t they, and although I’m not going to say anything at all bad—I feel that I’m betraying a confidence—exposing to the world something that he would have regarded as intimate and private—that’s why I hesitated and seemed to be in a difficulty just now.” She looked at Anthony earnestly, as though probing his mind for his opinion on the matter.
“I appreciate your diffidence, Miss Considine, and I think I can gauge exactly what your feelings are.”
She smiled with gratification. “Do you know, that’s very nice of you ... that will make it easier for me to know that. What I want to tell you is this—Gerald Prescott was in love with me and had asked me to be his wife.”
I gasped! Consummate effrontery I called it, even though the man was lying dead now.
Anthony appeared to take the news very quietly.
“When did he ask you that?” he queried.
“During the luncheon interval of Friday—the last day’s cricket we had.”
“I don’t wish to appear inquisitive, and believe me I am not asking idly or frivolously—what was your reply?”
Mary blushed a little and her eyes fluttered in my direction.
“I will tell you, Mr. Bathurst, I told him that I would give him his answer the next day—that was all I told him.”
“I am going a little further then—what was your answer going to be?”
She looked at me again, then shook her head.
“I don’t know, Mr. Bathurst. To be perfectly frank with you, I don’t really know—he was too good an athlete to take chances with.”
Anthony raised his eyes with an expression of bewilderment. “Too good an athlete? I don’t quite understand.”
Mary blushed again—then appealed to me to help her out.
“I forgot for the moment that you haven’t been here lately, Mr. Bathurst—tell him for me, Bill—will you, please?”
“Mary swore a fearful oath a few years ago,” I explained, “that she would marry no man that couldn’t beat her at cricket—single wicket and also over eighteen holes at golf—so that if she goes so far in the matter as to play the two matches it’s a kind of half acceptance of his proposal. For if she loses the two games—she pays forfeit. See? Neat plan, I say.”
Anthony grinned. “And Prescott was too good a man with whom to take liberties—eh?”
“I wasn’t sure,” she said, blushing furiously. “I wanted time to think.”
Anthony paced the room with swift steps. He came to her again. “This proposal was made, you say, the day preceding the murder?”
“Yes! To be exact, about twelve hours before.”
“You say your sister, Mrs. Arkwright, was in your confidence regarding Mr. Prescott’s proposal. When did you confide in her?”
Mary looked at him—surprised. “To-day,” she answered. “Not before!”
“So that not a soul knew of it before Prescott’s death?”
“They couldn’t have, Mr. Bathurst!” She spoke with conviction.
“Unless—pardon me making the suggestion—unless Prescott himself spoke of it to somebody.”
“That’s hardly likely, do you think?” she commented, the violet eyes brimming with tears at the recollection of this man who had loved her, and died so tragically in her home, “so improbable that surely we may dismiss the idea?”
“Had Prescott any particular chum in the house-party?”
“I don’t think so,” she responded. “Bill might know better than I.”
“Had he, Bill?” Anthony fired the question at me.
“No! I should say not. At any rate I hadn’t noticed any particular ‘Fidus Achates.’”
“I agree with you then, Miss Considine,” broke in Anthony. “It is extremely unlikely that he would have confided in anybody.”
Then she amazed him with her next remark.
“You don’t ask if he had an enemy?”
“What d’you mean?” he said very quietly.
“I mean just this, Mr. Bathurst. I knew very, very little of Gerald Prescott—I had only seen him two or three times before this Cricket Week commenced. And I am positive that during the past week—somebody has been trailing him—spying on him would be the better term.”
I felt myself growing excited. We seemed to go from unexpected to unexpected as we progressed in this affair. What was she going to tell us now?
“I take it you have a definite reason for saying this, Miss Considine?” asked Anthony gravely. “What are your facts?”
“I have, Mr. Bathurst, and when you have heard what I am going to tell you, I think you will agree with me. The first time I noticed it was on the Tuesday. After dinner that evening, Gerald Prescott and I walked out into the garden. We came out of the French doors and walked round by the lawn tennis courts. It was a lovely night, and he asked me to sit on the seat at the back of the courts. After we had been sitting there for a little time, I had that peculiar sensation that comes to one, when one is being watched. There are two big trees a few yards away from that seat—at the side of the path that leads to ‘The Meadow’ and then to the Allingham Road. I turned quickly and looked. There was a man there watching us. He was crouching down and I am almost certain had a soft hat pulled down over his face....” She paused and looked at Anthony.
“This is most interesting, Miss Considine—please go on!”
“I did not tell Mr. Prescott what I had seen, but suggested that we should walk back.”
“Would you pass close to the trees on your way back to the house?”
“No. We came up from the corner of the courts and would have the trees on our right.”
“At what distance?”
“About twenty yards away. Still, I could see quite clearly—the figure had disappeared.”
“Could you give any description of him at all?”
She pondered for a moment. “He seemed to be dressed in darkish clothes—that’s all I can say that I could rely upon.”
“Physically—how would you place him?”
Here she shook her head. “He was crouched down—his body wasn’t in a normal position. I couldn’t place him accurately.”
“Go on, Miss Considine, tell me of the other times.”
“There were two other occasions, Mr. Bathurst. One, the Thursday evening Mr. Prescott and I were again in the garden—it was before the Bridge party started. I purposely walked in the opposite direction to that we had taken on the Tuesday. We came round by the other path—leading past the billiard room and thence to the front of the house. When we reached there, we didn’t dally but turned quickly—we were afraid we should keep the card party waiting—and I am certain that we had been followed; I saw a figure crouching against the wall by the turn of the house—sheltering in its shadow. When we turned the figure dodged back quickly—and although we walked back quickly, I never saw it again.”
“Did Prescott see it?” queried Anthony.
“He said he didn’t when I mentioned it to him, but I am not sure that he wasn’t disclaiming the idea in order to stifle any fears I might have had.”
“In your opinion, Miss Considine, was it the same man that you had seen on the Tuesday?”
“I couldn’t possibly answer that, Mr. Bathurst. Much as I should like to. On this second occasion all I was able to catch sight of was part of a man’s body flattened against the angle of a wall.”
“I appreciate your difficulty. Now tell me of the third occasion.”
“The third time was, comparatively speaking, a trivial incident. On Friday evening—once again, not long after dinner, I was standing with Gerald in the opening of the drawing-room doors leading on to the garden. We were standing just inside the drawing-room. The others were still discussing that ‘detective’ conversation you yourself had started—Gerald Prescott and I had drifted away. In the midst of our conversation I thought I caught the sound of a very low cough coming from somewhere near—in the garden. When Gerald went in to play cards, I had the temerity to go out there. There was a dark patch of shadow just to the right, by the wall again—and Mr. Bathurst”—she paused dramatically—“all around that patch hung the pungent aroma of a recently smoked cigar.” She leaned over and put her hand on his sleeve. “Have I impressed you that some person or persons—was spying on him?”
“What was the conversation between you and Prescott on this last occasion?”
“He was pressing me for a reply to his proposal. The conversation didn’t last five minutes.”
Anthony looked perturbed. Some element in this latest information was worrying him.
“You didn’t give him one, of course, or any indication of your feelings?”
“None. I evaded the issue. We didn’t exchange more than half a dozen sentences.”
“Tell me, Miss Considine,” Anthony became very insistent, “did Prescott, as far as you were able to observe, betray any agitation or emotion, on any one of these three occasions?”
“As far as I was able to judge, Mr. Bathurst, none at all. I am not really sure that he ever saw or heard what I did. If he did, I could not detect that he showed it.”
“Thank you. You have told us very plainly and very illuminatingly of what happened. I am very grateful for the information.”
“I feel relieved now that I’ve told you this—it may mean more to you than it has done to me. It may even help you to read this riddle. Frankly, I can’t make it out. It would seem to me that Gerald Prescott brought something with him to Considine Manor, something dark and sinister that caused him to be shadowed and spied upon, yet his mother, who should know him best of all, is emphatic that whatever came to him, had its birth and origin here in Considine. Both of us can’t be right.”
She turned to go. Anthony opened the billiard room door for her, then, as she made her exit, came back to me. I looked at him interrogatively.
“Well?” I asked.
“Well, what, Bill?”
“What next? This is rather a facer, isn’t it? A surprising development. You had been here nearly a week, Bill, before I arrived—had you noticed anything of this admiration of Prescott’s for Mary Considine?”
“Can’t say that I had,” I replied after a little reflection—“of course I saw him talking to her sometimes—naturally—but I didn’t regard it as a frightfully serious business. Let me put it like this, I fancied that he found her attractive—come to that who wouldn’t—but I didn’t realize that he was so absolutely bowled over as Mary says.”
Anthony took out his cigarette case, selected a cigarette and tapped it carefully.
“This seat by the tennis courts—do you know exactly where she means?”
“Oh yes. Know it well. Why?”
“Well, before we go and have that look at Prescott’s bedroom that I spoke about, I think I should like to take a glance at this seat.”
“Right-O,” I responded. “I’ll pilot you there.”
We made our way down the garden, turned off to the left, and struck out for the tennis courts.
The trees that Mary had spoken about lay to our left between us and the road to Allingham.
“There’s the seat,” I said. “We’re approaching it the way that Mary says she and Prescott came back. The trees were then, you will remember, on their right.” I pointed.
“Quite correct, Bill,” came his reply. “According to her version of what happened, the watcher had disappeared when they passed the trees on the journey back. Where did he get to?”
“Probably back into the road,” I ventured. “Where he had, doubtless, come from.”
“You think so?” he answered. “Let’s go and have a look. Come over to the trees themselves.” We made our way over. Anthony looked at the seat we had just left, and then turned and gazed across the field to where the Allingham Road lay like a white ribbon across the stretch of Downs.
“What’s this shed for?” he inquired. He indicated a wooden building on the opposite side of the path between us and the house.
“It’s used for storing the lawn tennis gear,” I answered. “Sir Charles Considine had it built near the courts for that purpose.”
“Jolly useful place—don’t you think, Bill? Very useful indeed.”
“Yes,” I replied. “Quite a natural idea, though, surely.”
“Oh, eminently. But come on—let’s be getting back. I’ve seen all that I want to see.”
“Are you going to have a look at the other place where Mary thinks she saw this mysterious watcher—at the angle of the wall past the billiard room window? Or don’t you consider it sufficiently important?”
He seemed to have relapsed into a reverie. “Eh—what’s that—the other place? No—I don’t think I want to see that.” He continued. “If I could do what I hinted at in the first place, Bill—sort the actual clues from the false—the whole thing would resolve itself into a plain and simple explanation. There is some evidence that is either merely fortuitous or has been put into the affair with deliberate intent.”
He stopped and regarded me very seriously. Then he spoke.
“Bill, I’m inclined to think I’m crossing swords with a very clever criminal, but at the same time, I’m also inclined to think that his cleverness will be his undoing.” He rubbed his hands with a kind of pleasurable anticipation.
“Hallo—there’s Baddeley! Any more news, I wonder?”
“Good-day, Mr. Bathurst. Good-day, Mr. Cunningham.”
“Good-day, Inspector.” Anthony eyed him carefully. “You look a wee bit pleased with yourself, Inspector,” he sallied.
Baddeley smiled. “You aren’t looking too downcast yourself, Mr. Bathurst. All the same I haven’t exactly been wasting my time since I had the pleasure of last seeing you.”
“Good,” replied Anthony. “Going to take me into your confidence at last?”
The Inspector remained silent.
“No? Very unsporting of you——” Anthony grinned. “When are you making your arrest?”
But Baddeley didn’t take too kindly to his raillery. “At the right time, Mr. Bathurst, neither before nor after.”
Anthony purposely overlooked the acerbity in his tone and continued gaily:
“I’m sure of that, Inspector,” then provocatively again—“What I’m afraid of is that you’ll collar the wrong person. And my regard for you is such that I’m anxious that you shouldn’t.”
“I’m not denying it’s a very puzzling case, Mr. Bathurst,” rejoined Baddeley, “neither am I pretending that it’s all as clear as daylight to me—yet—but I’m getting on very nicely, thank you, and the last little ray of sunshine may come at any moment. They very often come when least expected.”
Sir Charles Considine, Lady Considine and Jack joined us.
“Ah, Baddeley!” cried Sir Charles—“what luck in your chase—did you get into touch with him all right? Did you get what you wanted?”
“Yes, thank you, Sir Charles—I found him where you said.”
“And you were entirely satisfied, eh, Baddeley?”
Baddeley turned the question aside. It didn’t suit him at the moment to satisfy Sir Charles’ curiosity. “I’ll see you later, Sir Charles,” he answered, “if you don’t mind.”
“Oh—quite—quite—I understand perfectly.”
“One question I should like to ask you, Sir Charles. On my way here, I met a telegraph boy obviously coming away from the house. Anything important happened since I was here last?”
Sir Charles stared at him blankly. “A telegram here—I wasn’t aware——”
Jack Considine cut in. “It was for me, Dad,” he said. “From Tennant.”
“Tennant?” muttered Baddeley. “Wasn’t he a guest here on the night of the murder? What did he want?”
Jack Considine smiled sweetly.
“His pajamas! He’d left them behind in his bedroom.”
Anthony drew me to one side. “I don’t think we gain a lot by staying here, Bill,” he whispered. “We’ll get back to my original proposition—let’s have another look at Prescott’s bedroom.”
We entered the house and went upstairs. It will be remembered that the bedroom occupied by Prescott was the fourth along the corridor, and lay between the rooms that had sheltered Major Hornby and Tennant. It had been straightened and put in order.
Anthony went to the wardrobe and opened it. “Clothes all gone,” he remarked.
“Wouldn’t the Inspector have them?” I suggested.
“I don’t mean the clothes he was wearing—I wanted his other clothes.”
“Mrs. Prescott, I expect—that’s the explanation. She’s taken them.”
“Very probably, Bill! Never mind—can’t be helped. I daresay she’ll let me have a glance at them if I consider it necessary. Let’s have a look at the dressing-table drawers. Are they empty too?”
I tried the first—empty. The others were in similar condition—everything had been removed—either by Baddeley or for Mrs. Prescott.
“We’re late, old man,” I said. “There’s nothing here.”
Anthony came and looked. “Pity! Still—it’s my own fault—I ought to have anticipated this. Delays are dangerous.”
He crossed to the window, and looked out, leaving the bathroom door open behind him.
“Precious little chance of any exit or entrance this way,” he said. “A cat would find a foothold difficult.”
“Why?” I asked. “You didn’t really consider that as a possibility, did you?”
“I consider everything as a possibility, Bill—till I know it’s not. Hallo—that’s rather interesting.” He pointed to the wash-hand basin.
“What is it?” I said.
“The stub of a cigar! Not finished either. Funny place for a cigar.”
“Not altogether,” I ventured. “Suppose Prescott was smoking a cigar when he came to bed that night and came in here to wash his hands. It would be a very natural thing for him to put it there while he washed them.”
Anthony nodded approvingly. “Yes! And when he’d finished washing them?”
“Well?”
“What then? Don’t you think he would pick it up again and finish his smoke rather than leave it lying there?”
“Possibly,” I responded.
“Rather strange it hasn’t been removed,” he reflected. “Haven’t any servants been here since the murder?”
“Perhaps they did the bedroom and didn’t trouble to come in here.”
He picked up the portion of cigar. As he had remarked it had certainly not been smoked to the point of necessary relinquishment.
“Remember what Mary Considine told us, Bill? Not long ago?”
“How do you mean?” I said.
“On the third occasion that she fancied Prescott was being watched or followed she went into the garden where she imagined the watcher to be, and detected the smell of cigar smoke. Nothing like conclusive, I know—but certainly pointing in the same direction.”
“What brand is it?” I asked.
Anthony demurred. “I am well aware that the immortal Holmes had published a brochure on the various kinds of tobacco ash—I really forget the number he mentioned—but alas! I am unable to keep pace with him there. It looks an ordinary type—I can tell you one thing—it isn’t one of Sir Charles Considine’s assortment—I’ve had too many not to know that. Still I’ll hang onto it.” He put it carefully away in his pocket.
“You’ll find that’s Prescott’s all right,” I exclaimed. “How can you imagine it could belong to anybody else? How could anybody else get in here—for a start? In the bathroom of Prescott’s bedroom!”
“There’s a door, Bill,” rejoined Anthony drily. “Quite a natural method of entering a room. You may be quite right, and it may have been Prescott’s—all the same I’m going to have a look round in here—there may be more in Mary’s story than either of us anticipated.” Out came the magnifying-glass again and he got to work with it on the floor of the bathroom.
I strolled back into the bedroom, and couldn’t altogether resist a smile as I heard him talking to himself from the farther apartment.
“These criminologists take things extraordinarily seriously,” I thought to myself. “Good job if they don’t run across too many cases in a lifetime.”
I looked round the bedroom. Why shouldn’t I try my hand at the sleuth game? Perhaps I could find something! To the best part of my memory Prescott’s bedroom had not received too meticulous an examination. After all he had slept and dressed in here for nearly a week, and a bedroom might very easily contain something of his secret, assuming that he possessed one. It was an intimate room—it touched a man—closely. If he had anything to conceal, it might well be that it was hidden in here, somewhere. I wandered round, my eyes searching for likely hiding-places. Inspiration came from nowhere. My eyes caught the bed. Had anybody looked underneath? At any rate I decided that I would! I went down full length and wriggled my body underneath. And I had not been under there many seconds when I formed the opinion that while the floor had nothing to tell me, the wainscoting directly below the head of the bed had three tiny pieces of paper on it! They had fluttered down as very small fragments of paper will, and come to rest on the skirting-board, before reaching the floor itself. Very probably of no consequence whatever, but I’d have old Anthony in, come what may!
I went to the connecting door. “Come in here a minute, will you?”
To all appearances he was engaged in a close scrutiny of the bath-mat. “What’s up?” he queried.
I was as near excitement as I had been since this bewildering affair had started.
I beckoned him. “Come in here!” I said. He came with alacrity. I lay at full length as I had done just previously. “Flop down here.” He joined me. I pointed to the skirting-board. “See anything there?”
“Only too true,” he muttered. “Wonder what it can be! Wriggle up and get it, Bill, the honors are yours, it’s your discovery.”
I wasted no time to do his bidding.
There were three tiny pieces of paper, just as I had thought. I took them carefully from the little ledge on which they were resting, and crawled out triumphantly from under the bed.
“Good man!” he grinned. “What are they—exactly—now you’ve fished ’em out? Pieces of a last week’s hotel-bill or an announcement of the local flower-show?”
I shook my head. “Remains of a letter,” I grunted—“there’s handwriting here.”
I handed the fragments to him. He took them eagerly. They were obviously small parts of a letter that had been carelessly torn up by somebody in the room, and in the throwing-away process had by some freak of wind or whimsicality, fluttered to the skirting-board. So I reasoned. Anthony spread them out.
I reproduce the three pieces here as nearly as I can remember them after so long an interval.
I gasped! “Good Lord!” I exclaimed. Anthony raised his eyebrows.
“What’s this?” he interrogated. “An assignation? Mary?”
“It’s Mary Considine,” I answered. “It’s her handwriting—I’ve seen it too frequently not to know it. Has she written that to Prescott?”
“No evidence as to whom it’s addressed, Bill. We can only conjecture as to that. Also we can only surmise what the capital ‘B’ stands for.”
“What do you think yourself?” I whispered almost fearfully.
“Billiard room, possibly! On the other hand——”
“If it was her way of answering his proposal—why wasn’t she frank with us about it? Did she meet him or merely intend to?”
“Look at the handwriting again, Bill! Look at it closely.”
I did as he told me. “You’re absolutely certain it’s Mary Considine’s writing?” he urged with intensity in his tone. “You haven’t the shred of a doubt?”
“Not a shred,” I replied. “Not the vestige of a doubt.”
“Very well! I’ll see her! I’m pretty accurate at summing people up psychologically, and I’m fully prepared for an adequate explanation.”
“I’m relieved to hear you say that,” I said. “Somehow it goes against the grain to have Mary implicated in this business, even though remotely.”
“How came you to look under there, Bill?” he asked suddenly.
“I think I was fired by your example,” I replied after a slight pause. “Yes, it was,” I went on. “Seeing you poking about in the bathroom started a train of thought in my mind and I decided to have a nose round in here. I glanced at several things in the room, and then suddenly thought of looking under the bed.”
He showed signs of approval. “It only shows you that second thoughts often prove to be very valuable. Our decision to take another glance at the billiard room and at this bedroom has brought us a great deal of really important information. We’ve progressed.”
“Do you think so?” I queried rather gloomily, I’m afraid. “It seems to me we’re getting deeper and deeper into a kind of morass of doubt and suspicion. Each clue we pick up seems to complicate matters, and contradict the previous one.” I sat on the bed. I really meant all that I said. As far as these discoveries went we seemed to be traveling away from a solution and not towards one.
“Be of good cheer, William,” cried Anthony jocularly. “All will yet be well.”
“I don’t know that I share your optimism,” I responded—“what’s the next move?”
“I’m going to take a rather bold step,” he replied. He came and sat himself on the bed beside me. “I’m going to have another word or two with Mary.” Then he stretched his long legs out and thrust his hands deep in his trousers-pockets. “Maybe I’m running a certain risk, but in life you have to take risks—I’ll take one now.” He jumped to his feet—“Coming, Bill?” I found myself wondering what was coming next as we descended the stairs. Where were we going? I loathed the proximity of Mary to the affair at the first onset and this latest development might mean anything.
“Would you be good enough to give me a moment in the library?” asked Anthony when we found her. “Just as a ‘quid pro quo’? I gave you a few moments in the billiard room, and now I’m asking you to return the compliment.” He smiled and Mary smiled back.
“Of course, Mr. Bathurst! I’ll come now! Is it anything important?” she asked when we were settled.
“That’s a difficult question to answer, Miss Considine,” said Anthony seriously, and with an obviously deliberate choice of words. “You were pleased a short while ago to tell me certain intimate details affecting Prescott and yourself—I appreciated intensely the confidence you imposed in me—you see you’ve known me for a considerably less time than you have Bill, here.” He paused.
Mary intervened. “I don’t quite know to where all this is leading—but possibly I share, to a very humble extent, your own gift of character-reading.”
Anthony bowed to her. “Thank you—again! I am yielding to the promptings of that gift when I approach you now! And the information that you gave me earlier makes that approach a matter of necessity.” He held the three scraps of paper out to her.
“Miss Considine—will you look at these very closely? Is the handwriting yours?”
Mary glanced at the fragments with growing astonishment.
“What is this—please?” she queried.
“Can you help by answering my question first?”
I watched her and saw the amazement in her eyes.
“Very well then—Mr. Bathurst—yes. But I can’t——”
“You are certain? I want to be unmistakably certain—certain for instance that it isn’t an imitation—a wonderfully accurate imitation?”
She wrinkled her brows and pored over the pieces. When she raised her eyes she betrayed greater wonderment than ever.
“Mr. Bathurst—Bill—I’m absolutely bewildered. I’m certain—positive—as positive as I ever could be about anything—that this is my handwriting—yet I can’t recognize the letter from where they’ve come—I can’t even think whom it’s to—and if I didn’t know that it was my handwriting—I should swear that I hadn’t written it!!”
“You mean,” suggested Anthony, “that you don’t——”
“I mean this—absurd though it may seem and sound—that I recognize the handwriting, but I don’t recognize the letter. It is entirely unfamiliar. It appears to me at the moment that I’ve never previously seen it.” The color flamed in her cheeks and her eyes were bright with excitement. Anthony waited for her to proceed. He seemed to divine what her next question was going to be.
“Tell me,” her lips were working tremulously, “what is this? How did it come into your possession?”
“Those three fragments in your handwriting, Miss Considine, were found under the bed in the room recently occupied by Gerald Prescott.”
“What?” she exclaimed—indignation challenging surprise in her tone—“Mr. Bathurst—it can’t possibly be—I’ve never written a line to Mr. Prescott in my life.”
“Yet they were discovered as I have just said.” He spoke very quietly.
“There is some mistake—some mystery,” she reiterated.
“Some enemy hath done this—eh?” remarked Anthony.
“I’m dumbfounded—I don’t know what to say or suggest. I can’t think!”
“Tell me,” he said, “I realize the fragments are small, and therefore, not too easy to identify—but there’s this point. Do you recognize the notepaper as notepaper that you yourself would have been likely to use?”
She looked at it closely and ran her fingers over its surface.
“Yes,” she answered. “It is Considine Manor notepaper—I am sure of that. We have used it for years. I can show it to you.”
She went across to Sir Charles Considine’s desk that stood in the corner. “Here is some,” she said. “Compare it for yourself.”
Anthony took it and inspected its texture and quality. Then passed it over to me. There was no doubt about it.
The fragments that I had picked up were pieces of the Manor notepaper.
Then I took a hand. “If you don’t recognize the letter, Mary, that these fragments are part of—well, it seems to me that you can’t have written it. Don’t you see what I mean?”
She gazed at me blankly. Then her reason appeared to reassert itself. “That’s just how it appears to me, Bill! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell both of you.” She crossed and seated herself again.
“Yet it is your handwriting—you are certain,” interposed Anthony.
“Yet it is my handwriting——” she echoed his words in acquiescence.
“It’s a staggerer,” I exclaimed. “It all seems so completely contradictory.”
“The most paradoxical and seemingly contradictory things have sometimes the simplest solutions,” remarked Anthony—“when you can find them.”
Mary pressed her hands to her brow. “If I could only think clearly about it,” she cried wearily, “I’m sure the explanation would come to me—but I can’t! I can only repeat what I’ve previously said—I’m certain it’s my handwriting—yet I have no knowledge of the writing beyond that fact.” She turned to Anthony. “You say you found the pieces under the bed? Am I to understand you suspected their existence and were looking for them?”
“Bill was the discoverer, Miss Considine—not I,” replied Anthony. “I haven’t really heard the source of his inspiration.”
“It seemed to me there was just a possibility of picking something up in the bedroom”—I tried to bear my blushing honors with modesty—“so I just had a crawl round. Of course it was a piece of terrific luck. A positive thousand to one shot.” I looked at Anthony. He had relapsed into a chair—thinking hard. His silence seemed to infect the whole room, and Mary and I sat and regarded each other solemnly. Then Anthony astounded us both. I always knew that his mind had the habit of flying off at surprising tangents, and I was a little prepared for the sudden turn it took now.
“How many cars have you in the garage, Miss Considine?” he asked.
She wrinkled up her forehead in surprise.
“Of our own, do you mean, or including everybody’s? I don’t quite follow——”
He regarded her steadily.
“Of your own—belonging to Considine Manor, if you prefer it put that way.”
“Two.”
“What are they?”
“What make—do you mean?”
“Exactly,” he answered.
“A ‘Daimler’ and a ‘Morris-Oxford.’”
Anthony made a gesture of annoyance. “Had them long?”
“The Daimler about four years—the Morris-Oxford only a few months—February, I think we bought it. Why?”
He waved her question on one side, swinging a question back to her—“What made you buy it?”
She thought hard for a moment. Then her face cleared. “The other car we had at that time kept giving trouble. The engine was continually giving us trouble.”
Anthony leaned across—nervously eager with excitement—“What was the other car—Miss Considine?”
“The old one?—a ‘Bean,’ Mr. Bathurst.”
The morning of the inquest broke beautifully fine and sunny. I looked out of my bedroom window and felt that the duty that lay ahead of us meant putting such a glorious day to poor use. The inquest was to be held at the “Swan’s Nest”—the most pretentious hostelry that Considine boasted. I shaved, washed and dressed with an ill grace that morning, for I could remember attending an inquest before—it had bored me beyond expression.
Sir Charles opened the matter at breakfast. “Baddeley tells me they are bringing Marshall in from Lewes for to-day’s affair. I was, I confess, somewhat surprised at the news—I had scarcely anticipated such a step. I suppose they know their own business best.”
“Who is the coroner for this district, Sir Charles?” asked Anthony.
“A Dr. Anselm. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him once or twice before ... being a magistrate,” replied our host.
“It wouldn’t astonish me to see a verdict of ‘Wilful murder’ against ‘Spider’ Webb,” said Jack Considine—“despite what he and this pretty wife of his say about it. What’s your opinion, Bathurst?”
Anthony walked across to the sideboard and helped himself to a healthy portion of cold pie.
“Depends entirely upon what Baddeley wants,” he responded. “If he’s keen on that particular verdict he’ll probably play his cards to get it. Personally, I’m not so sure that he is.” He went back to the table.
“What makes you think that, Bathurst?” asked Captain Arkwright.
“Oh—I’m not suggesting anything against Baddeley, in any shape or form—but the police have advantages in these matters—they’re playing on their own ground as it were.” He laughed. “I’m assured in my own mind that it is so—I’ve watched events pretty closely and often noticed it—still, this Inspector has impressed me throughout as an upright, honest and quite efficient person so we can’t tell.” He walked back to his seat. Then continued, “And of course, there’s always the possibility that he may have something up his sleeve. Personally—I shall expect it.”
“Well, Baddeley isn’t the only one to have that,” I ventured blazingly indiscreet.
Anthony shook a warning finger at me. “Bill—Bill——” The breakfast company immediately became all attention.
“What’s this, Bill?” demanded Sir Charles. “Who among us has any special knowledge? Bathurst hasn’t made any other discoveries, has he?”