Poison Island

by Arthur Quiller-Couch

  CHAPTER XIII.

  CLUES IN A TANGLE.

  "Guilty or not," said Mr. Jack Rogers, sharply, "I'll take care hedoesn't escape. Run you down to Miss Belcher's kennels, and fetchalong a couple of men--any one you can pick up--to help. And don'tmake a noise as you go past the cottage; the women there arefrightened enough already. Come to think of it, I heard some fellowsat work as I drove by just now, thinning timber in the plantationunder the kennels. Off with you, man, and don't stand gaping like astuck pig!"

  Thus adjured, Constable Hosken ran, leaving us three to watch thebody.

  "The man's pockets have been rifled, that's plain enough," Mr. Rogersmuttered, as he bent over it again, and with that I suppose I musthave made some kind of exclamation, for he looked up at me, stillwith a horrified frown.

  "Hallo! You know him?"

  I nodded.

  "His name's Coffin. He came here from Falmouth."

  For a moment Mr. Rogers did not appear to catch the words. His eyestravelled from my face to Mr. Goodfellow's.

  "You, too?"

  "Knew him intimate. Know him? Why, I live but two doors away fromhim in the same court."

  "Look here," said Mr. Rogers, slowly, after a pause, "this is a blackbusiness, and a curst mysterious one, and I wasn't born with the giftof seeing daylight through a brick wall. But speaking as amagistrate, Mr. What's-your-name, I ought to warn you against sayingwhat may be used for evidence. As for you, lad, you'd best tell asmuch as you know. What d'ye say his name was?"

  "Coffin, sir."

  "H'm, he's earned it. The back of his head's smashed all to pieces.Lived in Falmouth, you say? And you knew him there?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Then what was he doing in these parts?"

  "He started to call on my father, sir."

  "Eh? You knew of his coming?"

  "Yes, sir. We planned it together."

  Mr. Rogers, still on his knees, leaned back and regarded me fixedly.

  "You planned it together?" he repeated slowly. "Well, go on.He started to call on your father? Why?"

  "He wanted to show my father something," said I, with a glance at Mr.Goodfellow. "Are you sure, sir, there's nothing in his pockets?"

  "Not a penny-piece. I'll search 'em again if you insist, though Idon't like the job."

  "He carried it in his breast-pocket, sir; there, on the left side."

  "Then your question's easy to answer." Mr. Rogers turned back thelapel and pointed. The pocket hung inside out. "But what was it hecarried?"

  I hesitated, with another glance towards Mr. Goodfellow, who at thesame moment uttered a cry and sprang for a thicket of bramblesdirectly behind Mr. Rogers's back. Mr. Rogers leapt up, with anoath.

  "No, you don't!" he threatened, preparing to spring in pursuit.

  But Mr. Goodfellow, not heeding him, plunged a hand among thebrambles and drew forth a walking-stick of ebony, carved in rings,ending with a ferrule in an iron spike--Captain Coffin'swalking-stick.

  "I glimpsed at it, there, lyin' like a snake," he began, and let fallthe stick with another sudden, sharp cry. "Ur-rh! There's bloodupon it!"

  Mr. Rogers picked it up and examined it loathingly. Blood therewas--blood mixed with grey hairs upon its heavy ebony knob, and bloodagain upon its wicked-looking spike.

  "This settles all question of the weapon," he said. "The owner ofthis--"

  We cried out, speaking together, that the stick belonged to themurdered man; and just then a voice hailed us, and Constable Hoskencame panting up, with two of Miss Belcher's woodmen at his heels.

  Mr. Rogers directed them to fetch a hurdle. Then came the questionwhither to carry the corpse, and after some discussion one of thewoodmen suggested that Miss Belcher's cricket pavilion lay handy, acouple of hundred yards beyond the rise of the park, across thestream. "At this time of year the lady wouldn't object--"

  Mr. Rogers shuddered.

  "And the last time I saw the inside of it 'twas at Lydia'sCricket-Week Ball--and the place all flags and lanterns, and a goodthird of the men drunk! Well, carry him there if you must, but dammeif I'll ever find stomach to dance there again!"

  The men lifted their burden and carried it out into the lane, wherethe rest of us pulled away the furze-bushes stopping he gate into thepark, and so followed the body up the green slope towards the rise,over which, as we climbed, the thatched roof of the pavilion slowlyhove into sight.

  "Hallo!" Mr. Rogers halted and stared at the bearers, who also hadhalted. "What the devil noise is that?"

  The noise was that of a sudden blow or impact upon timber.After about thirty seconds it was repeated, and our senses told usthat it came from within the pavilion.

  "I reckon, sir," suggested one of the woodmen, "'tis Miss Belcherpractising."

  "Good Lord! Come with us, Harry--the rest stay where you are,"Mr. Rogers commanded, and ran towards the pavilion; and as we startedI heard a whizzing and cracking within, as of machinery, followed bya double crack of timber.

  "Lydia! Lydia Belcher!"

  "Hey! What's the matter now?" I heard Miss Belcher's voice demand, ashe burst in through the doorway. "Take care, the catapult's loaded!"A whiz, and again a crack. "There now! Oh, well fielded, indeed!Well fiel--Eh? Caught you on the ankle, did it? Well, and you'relucky it didn't find your skull, blundering in upon a body in thisfashion."

  The first sight that met me as I reached the doorway was Mr. JackRogers holding one foot and hopping around with a face of agony.From him my astonished gaze travelled to Miss Lydia Belcher, whom Imust pause to describe.

  I have hinted before that Miss Belcher was an eccentric; but Icertainly cannot have prepared the reader--as I was certainlyunprepared myself--for Miss Belcher as we surprised her.

  She wore top-boots, but this is a trifle, for she habitually woretop-boots. Upon them, and beneath the short skirt of a red flannelpetticoat, she had indued a pair of cricket-guards. Above the redflannel petticoat came, frank and unashamed, an ample pair of stays;above them, the front of a yet ampler chemise and a yellow bandannakerchief tied in a sailor's knot; above these, a middle-aged facefull of character and not without a touch of moustache on the upperlip; an aquiline nose, grey eyes that apologized to nobody, a broadbrow to balance a broad, square jaw, and, on the top of all, asquare-topped beaver hat. So stood Miss Belcher, with a cricket-batunder her arm; an Englishwoman, owner of one of England's "statelyhomes"; a lady amenable to few laws save of her own making, and to noman save--remotely--the King, whose health she drank sometimes inport and sometimes in gin-and-water.

  "Good morning, Jack! Sorry to cut you over with that off-drive; butyou shouldn't have come in without knocking. Eh? Is that HarryBrooks?" Her face grew grave for a moment before she turned upon Mr.Rogers that smile which, if usually latent and at the best notentirely feminine, was her least dubitable charm. "Now, upon myword. Jack, you have more thoughtfulness than ever I gave you creditfor."

  Mr. Rogers stared at her.

  "An hour's knockabout with me will do the child more good than mopingin the house, and I ought to have thought of it myself. Come along,Harry Brooks, and play me a match at single wicket. Help me pushaway the catapult there into the corner. Will you take firstinnings, or shall we toss?"

  The catapult indicated by Miss Belcher was a formidable-lookingengine with an iron arm or rod terminating in a spoon-shaped socket,and worked by a contrivance of crank and chain. You placed yourcricket-ball in the socket, and then, having wound up the crank anddrawn a pin which released the machinery, had just time to run backand defend your wicket as the iron rod revolved and discharged theball with a jerk. The rod itself worked on a slide, and could beshortened or extended to vary the trajectory, and the exercise itentailed in one way and another had given Miss Belcher's cheeks afine healthy glow.

  "Whew!" she exclaimed, tucking the bat under her arm and wiping herforehead with a loose end of her yellow bandana. "I'm feelin' likethe lady in 'The Vicar of Wakefield'; by w
hich I don't mean the onethat stooped to folly, but the one that was all of a muck of sweat."

  "My dear Lydia," gasped Mr. Rogers, "we haven't come to play cricket!Put down your bat and listen to me. There's the devil to pay in thisparish of yours. To begin with, we've found another body--"

  "Eh? Where?"

  "In the plantation under the slope here--close beside the path, andabout two gunshots off the lane."

  "What have you done with it?"

  "Two of your fellows are fetching it along. I was going to ask youas a favour to let it lie here for the time while we follow up thesearch."

  "Of course you may. But who is it?"

  "An old man in sea clothes. Harry knows him; says he hails fromFalmouth, and that his name is Coffin. And we've arrested a youngfellow on suspicion, though I begin to think he hasn't much to dowith it; but, as it happens, he comes from Falmouth too, and knowsthe deceased."

  Miss Belcher hitched an old riding-skirt off a peg and indued it overher red flannel petticoat, fastening it about her waist with aleathern strap and buckle.

  "Well, the first thing is to fetch the body along, and then I'll godown with you and have a look."

  "I've halted the men about a hundred yards down the hill. I thoughtperhaps you'd step straight along with me to the house, so as to beout of the way when they--But, anyhow, if you insist on coming, wecan fetch across the cricket-field and down to the left, so that youneedn't meet it."

  "Bless the man!"--Miss Belcher had turned to another peg, taken downa loose weather-stained gardening-jacket, and was slipping an arminto the sleeve--"you don't suppose, do you, that I'm the sort ofperson to be scared by a dead body? Open the door, please, and leadthe way. This is a serious business, Jack, and I doubt if you havethe head for it."

  Sure enough, the sight of the dead body on the hurdle shook MissBelcher's nerve not at all, or, at any rate, not discernibly.

  "Humph!" she said. "Take him to the pavilion and cover him decently.You'll find a yard or two of clean awning in the left-hand corner ofthe scoring-box." She eyed Mr. Goodfellow for a couple of secondsand swung round upon Mr. Rogers. "Is that the man you've arrested?"

  Mr. Rogers nodded.

  "Fiddlestick-end!"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Fiddlestick-end! Look at the man's face. And you call yourself ajustice of the peace?"

  "It was thrust upon me," said Mr. Rogers, modestly. "I don't sayhe's guilty, mind you; and, of course, if you say he isn't--"

  "Look at his face!" repeated Miss Belcher; and, turning, addressedMr. Goodfellow. "My good man, you hadn't any hand in this--eh?"

  "No, ma'am; in course I hadn't," Mr. Goodfellow answered fervently.

  "There! You hear what he says?"

  "Lydia, Lydia! I've the highest possible respect for your judgment;but isn't this what you might cull a trifle--er--summary?"

  "It saves time," said Miss Belcher. "And if you're going to catchthe real culprit, time is precious. Now take me to see the spot."

  But at this point Mr. Goodfellow's emotions overmastered him, and hebroke forth into the language of rhapsody.

  "O woman, woman!" exclaimed Mr. Goodfellow, "whatever would the worlddo without your wondrous instink!"

  "Bless the man!"--Miss Belcher drew back a pace--"is he talking ofme?"

  "No, ma'am; generally, or, as you might say, of the sex as a whole.Mind you, I won't go so far as to deny that the gentleman here--orthe constable, for that matter--had some excuse to be suspicious.But to think o' me liftin' a hand against poor old Danny Coffin!Why, ma'am, the times I've a-led him home from the public whenincapable is not to be numbered; and only at this very moment in mylittle shop, home in Falmouth, I've a corner cupboard of his underrepair that he wouldn't trust to another living soul! And alongcomes you an' say, 'That man's innocent! Look at his face!' yousays, which it's downright womanly instink, if ever there was such athing in this world."

  "A corner cupboard!" I gasped. "You have the corner cupboard?"

  Mr. Goodfellow nodded. "I took it home unbeknowns to the old man.Many a time he'd spoken to me about repairin' it, the upper hingebein' cracked, as you may remember. But when it came to handin' itover I could never get him. So that afternoon, the coast bein' clearand him sitting drunk in the Plume o' Feathers, as again you willremember--"

  But here Miss Belcher shot out a hand and gripped my collar to steadyme as I reeled. I dare say that hunger and lack of sleep had much todo with my giddiness; at any rate, the grassy slope had begun all ofa sudden to heave and whirl at my feet.

  "Drat the boy! _He's_ beginning now!"

  "Take me home," I implored her, stammering. "Please, Miss Belcher!"

  "Now, I'll lay three to one," said Miss Belcher, holding me off andregarding me, "that no one has thought of giving this child an honestbreakfast. And"--she turned on Mr. Jack Rogers--"you call yourself ajustice of the peace!"