“Well?” she asked impatiently, and Richard went on:
“Think it out. There was only a short space of time between the moment when that door was broken in and when Inspector Long had Basil’s bedroom door locked and sealed. In the course of that interval your doings can be accounted for fairly thoroughly – taking into account the exact moment at which you put through a call to the police station, the evidence of the maids, and of the chap on duty at the front door. My own doings can be accounted for still more thoroughly, for I was upstairs with Long until I came down to speak to you in the morning-room – though it’s conceivable that I might have found time for a dash into Basil’s bedroom on my way downstairs – but Martin, he’s no cover at all save the one you mistakenly tried to engineer for him. I’m not saying what he did, Ronnie. I’m saying what it’s possible he might have done, and that’s what the Chief Inspector is interested in.”
“And what does all this lead to?” she demanded scornfully.
“What I said to begin with. Make him show up. If you won’t do that, give me a chance to talk to him and get his story fair and square so that he can’t muddle himself into half-truths which can be turned against him. The present situation’s too idiotic to continue. Something’s got to happen, and it’ll be one of two things. Either that Martin comes back of his own free will, or that he’s run to earth by the C.I.D.”
“You’re arguing on two assumptions, both quite untenable,” she retorted. “The first is that Martin ran away, the second that I know where he is. You’re wrong in each respect.”
Richard kicked the logs together and sighed. “All right, Ronnie. If you won’t trust me, you won’t – but you’re making a fair-sized ass of yourself.”
“Having arrived at your brotherly conclusion, it only remains for me to point out that this is my house, and the sooner you leave it, the better for both of us,” she said.
Richard merely shrugged his shoulders.
“I’ve no doubt you’d like to kick me out, but it’s more easily said than done,” he replied. “I’m going to stay here until such time as Martin chooses to materialise again, or until Scotland Yard retires to chew its final conclusions – and remember, if you’ll only make up your mind to trust me, I might help you – and Martin, too.”
She made no reply, but turned away and went upstairs; Richard Mallowood heard her footsteps recede along the creaking boards of the long corridor upstairs, and then heard her bedroom door shut. After that silence reigned in the vast house while he sat and stared into the fire, his face intent and thoughtful.
Richard sat over the fire for an hour or more, listening to the faint creaks in the old house, as the air cooled after the day’s sunshine and ancient timber seemed to settle down audibly. The grandfather clock ticked ponderously, the flames lapped against the stone chimney, an occasional squeak and scamper told of rats behind the panelling. It was not until the clock struck eight that Richard rose and stretched himself, and made his way along to the kitchen quarters where he foraged for a meal. Like most travellers – men accustomed to camping in strange places – he was himself neat and competent in domestic matters, and could cook and serve a meal and wash up dishes with a dexterity which would have put many a servant girl to shame. The sight of the vast kitchen in the Manor House disgusted him, for Veronica seemed to have no sense of orderliness in her composition. Unwashed dishes, fragments of food and half empty cans were left as a happy hunting ground to mice, rats and beetles, and the stone-flagged floors were marred with greasy drops and crumbs. With a grimace of disgust, Richard hunted in the larder, found himself a loaf and some cheese, a bottle of beer and some apples, and carried them to the dining-room because he scorned to eat in the stale smelling, slovenly kitchen. He laughed a little as he set his tray on the great oak dining table – a strange meal to eat in solitude in that superb and sombre room.
“God, what a mess!” he said to himself as he looked at the dusty room and the uncleaned hearth. Under the pile of wood ashes there was still a sullen glow left from the fire he had himself kindled earlier in the day, and with a huge pair of bellows he made it flame again, tossing logs on until the fire roared and spluttered.
On all the previous evenings since they had been alone in the house together Veronica had come and joined him for an evening meal, and they had eaten together with at least some semblance of dignity and sociability, but this evening she did not appear, and Richard ate alone in the great room, gazing sardonically at the family portraits which looked down on him from the panelled walls.
“And a fine lot of blackguards you look, all of you,” he broke out, and was startled by the sound of his own voice when he spoke.
After his meal, having cleared away his dishes with the methodical neatness which always surprised Veronica, Richard went back to the hall, lighted his pipe, and stretched himself out by the fire, enjoying its heat and radiance. He had left open the service doors leading to the kitchens, and he listened to ascertain if Veronica came downstairs to get some supper, but he heard nothing save the characteristic groans and grumblings of the ancient house.
It was between ten and eleven o’clock that he went upstairs to bed, and walked deliberately along the corridor towards Veronica’s room and called out good night. He got no answer, and he drummed on her door with his knuckles, repeating his words, but still heard no response.
Richard then went to his own room, at the east end of the corridor, having turned off all the lights, and closed his door with a resolute bang.
Once inside, however, he did not go to bed: he changed his leather soled shoes for an old pair with rope soles, took off his tweed coat and donned a seaman’s knitted pullover with a rolled collar, put an electric torch in his trousers pocket, and then switched off the light in his room and set the door wide. For more than an hour he sat in the dark, listening intently, and at last was rewarded when he heard the tell-tale boards creak at the end of the corridor farthest from his own.
He went outside, crossed the corridor with two cautious strides and gained the door to the servant’s quarters, nearly opposite his own room. He moved swiftly in the dark along the awkward passage, negotiating its turns and unevennesses without hesitation, and descended the service stairs by the simple expedient of sliding down the handrail. The stairway led to a lobby in the maze of passages connecting up kitchens, scullery, still rooms, pantries, dairy, wash-house and other intricacies which formed the service wing of the manor home, and from Richard’s point of view his position had one great advantage in the lunatic game of hide and seek he had embarked on – he stood on a stone floor, and stone floors do not creak. Veronica, he judged, would come downstairs: she had the choice of two staircases – the main one or the one which ran by the morning room at the west end of the house. What she would do when she reached the ground floor Richard had no means of knowing, but he had hazarded a guess that she would make for the east wing of the house – the Elizabethan Wing which was now locked off from the main building. Standing in the darkness, listening intently, he heard movements, at last, as the creaking boards betrayed the silent footed walker. He heard the old doors groan on their hinges, and knew that someone was in the kitchen. He recognised the sounds made by someone opening cupboards and drawers, and his eyes caught a glimmer of light reflected down the tortuous passage. The gleam vanished, and his ears told him that someone was now in the dining-room, and he chuckled to himself. Was Veronica merely satisfying her hunger belatedly, having been too proud to eat her supper while he himself was still up and about the house?
Listening intently, he heard the sound of a key turning in its lock, and his quick ears, coupled to his knowledge of the old house, told him that the door which had been opened was that leading from the dining-room to the library and gallery of the Elizabethan wing, which had been kept locked ever since he had been back at home, save when Macdonald had made his inspection of the house. Richard moved forward softly across the stone flags when he heard that door being closed again, but
he heard the key being turned on the farther side and a bolt shot home. He went across the dining-room and tried the door to satisfy himself that he had heard aright, and then shot the bolt on his own side of the door. He then went back to the kitchen passage and let himself out by a side door and prowled softly along the wall of the far side of the east wing. There were no doors on this side of the wing, and but few of the windows opened, but Richard had made his own arrangements for gaining admission. He walked past the windows of the library and long gallery until he reached the window of a small powder closet. Stretching up, he slipped the blade of his penknife under the ancient window frame and levered it up until he was able to get his fingers underneath and get a grip on the frame. The little casement came bodily away, for the screws in its hinges had rusted away from the rotten woodwork, and its latch slipped out of the catch when the hinged side was displaced. Richard’s strong and dexterous hands lifted it out and down without a sound. He hauled himself up on the sill got his head and shoulders through the small window space, and eventually wriggled himself through into the little dark chamber, reflecting that the additional girth he had acquired since his boyhood’s days was a disadvantage when it came to insinuating his shoulders through an Elizabethan window. He moved across to the door of the room, removed a wedge from the door, opened it, and listened. He was now standing on the threshold of a larger room beyond the gallery: in the darkness beside him a small spiral stair ran up to the minstrel’s gallery which ran across one end of the long room which had served as the dining-room of the Elizabethan manor: beyond him, farther away from the main building, were the Elizabethan kitchens, long unused, which had been built over the cellars of a medieval monastery. It was in this part of the building, if anywhere, that Richard believed that his brother Martin might be hidden. As boys, Richard and Paul and Basil had spent hours exploring the forbidden cellars and vaults of Wulfstane, and playing hide and seek among the innumerable turns, intricacies, exits and entrances of that relic of medievalism. Richard knew that he could find half a dozen entrances to the vaults which would never be suspected by the uninitiated searcher, but he knew also that Veronica’s acquaintance with the building was much more detailed than his own.
After he had paused for a moment to listen, Richard went on, in complete darkness, across the room with the little spiral, and found an open door at its farther end. His eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom outside, and he knew that the windows here must be shuttered, for he could not make out the rectangle of paler gloom which should have told him where a window was situated: it was solid impenetrable blackness all around him. Moving softly onwards, he felt the smoothness of stone flags beneath his feet again. With his hands touching the panelled walls he moved round towards the entrance to the cellars which he knew to be in the south-east corner of the room, and at last his fingers came on a gap instead of the solid panelling. The cold air coming up from below told its own tale – the old “secret doorway” which he and Basil had found long ago was open now, and his feet felt for the worn stone steps which led downwards. He had taken three cautious steps downwards, his hands touching the stone wall on either side, when something caught against his ankle. He lurched forwards, lost his balance and crashed forwards down the steps, falling from top to bottom and landing with a thud, his head striking the wall below, consciousness leaving him as he landed in a heap, with scarcely time to swear, on the cold dank flag stones of the Wulfstane cellars.
When Richard recovered his senses and sat up painfully his mind was a blank at first. He was in total darkness, stiff and cold, his limbs aching and bruised. Gradually he remembered the activities which had preceded his fall, and swore to himself at his own futility. It was a clear case of biter bitten: he, who had set out to track Veronica, had fallen victim to the simplest of booby traps – a line stretched across the stairs. Picking himself up at last, he found that his fall had left him little the worse save for an aching head and bruised limbs, but he realised that he had given himself away entirely – his fall must have resounded through the building.
He moved round the vault in which he had been lying, moving with cautious, painful footsteps. He found the door which led to the further cellars, locked and immovable. His torch was broken and he had but little desire to explore further, because he knew that to-night any such activities would prove futile. Richard Mallowood went up the steps again and found – rather to his surprise – that the door at the top was unlocked. When he got back on to the ground floor he discovered that light was shining through the chinks in the shutters and that it was morning. He returned to the inhabited part of the house by the route he had followed when he came out – but his side door which gave on to the kitchen regions was locked.
It was cold in the early dawn: frost lay on the grass and white mist wreathed the woods. Richard Mallowood alternately shivered and swore. He remembered how carefully he had locked all the other doors last night, shuttered the windows and make the place secure. Veronica was inside, doubtless – undisputed mistress of her own domain.
It was two hours later that Peter Vernon, looking out of the front door of the Mallowood Arms, conscious of an enchanting odour of grilled bacon and kidneys, and the rare aroma of good coffee behind him, saw Richard Mallowood approaching the inn, still in his blue seaman’s jersey. With a glance at Richard’s face Vernon said:
“Good morning. You look as though you’ve had a spill.”
Richard smiled, quite amiably.
“I have an’ all. Bird’s nesting. That coffee smells good.”
“It is good – quite unusually so. You’re a rash man to go bird’s nesting in October.”
“I have an antipodean mind,” said Richard cheerfully. “I like the smell of that bacon. I’m coming to have some. My wife can’t cook bacon.”
“The moral is – remain single,” replied Vernon gravely, and Richard Mallowood threw back his head and laughed as though at a very good joke.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IN his room at Scotland Yard, Macdonald had just finished a conversation on the trans-continental telephone. He had been talking to a colleague in the “Special” branch whose duties involved liaison work with the police organisations of France and Spain and his head buzzed a little with the effort of hearing and of making himself understood. A sergeant standing by was waiting for him with a message from the Assistant Commissioner, Colonel Wragley, to the effect that the latter wished to talk to him as soon as he (Macdonald) had finished telephoning.
The Chief Inspector made his way to the A.C.‘s room in a thoughtful frame of mind: Macdonald himself was the most patient of men and he often found Colonel Wragley’s impatient nature exasperating – as the Colonel, in his turn, found Macdonald’s native cautiousness exasperating. The fact was that Macdonald hated to put a theory into words until he had solid evidence to support a “hunch.” He had often seen his way through a case long before he had amassed the evidence which gave substance to his ideas. Macdonald was a “good guesser,” but there was something in his shrewd Scots mind which made him unwilling to share his guesses while they existed only as surmise.
Colonel Wragley greeted the Chief Inspector with a characteristic question, breezily uttered:
“Well, Macdonald? Arrived at any conclusion in this Mallowood case yet? This latest news about clinches things to my mind.”
“You are referring to the report of Paul Mallowood’s death, sir?”
“Obviously,” retorted the other. “Here is the chain of events, as I see them. Paul Mallowood, the only substantially wealthy member of the family, leaves England after a farewell visit to his family, during which he probably gave them chapter and verse concerning his forthcoming tour. After Paul’s departure, two things happen: the youngest brother, Martin, disappears, and Basil, in possession of a small fortune in the form of negotiable securities, shoots himself, and his loot vanishes. I’ve been studying your notes on the family and the house they live in, Macdonald – a very interesting report, too. It’s ab
undantly clear which parties are in need of money – the sister, Veronica, and her twin, Martin. I should say that they hatched out a plan between them whereby Martin followed on Paul’s heels to Tunis, knowing in advance where Paul was going to stay, and Martin killed him when he got the opportunity. It’s plain enough that it’s easier to kill a man in Tunis than in England, and get away with it. They’re a savage lot out there – dagoes, natives, and the whole lot. Stabbing affrays are common enough there, and investigation of them uncommonly casual. In support of this, take the sister’s evidence about Martin’s wandering habits and loss of memory. Very unconvincing, Macdonald. Obviously, a put-up explanation, carefully prepared in advance. It seems plain enough from your notes, also, that Veronica and Martin hated Paul, and may well have been watching for an opportunity to kill him. They’re a queer pair, if I’ve read your evidence aright.”
“I agree with you that they are a queer pair, sir; the whole family seems to be a bit abnormal, no matter what standard you judge them by. It is also very obvious that Veronica and Martin were in need of money to enable them to go on living at the Manor, let alone to keep it in any sort of repair – but I fail to see how they could have been certain that Paul Mallowood’s death would benefit them financially. Judging by the relationship assumed to exist between them, there seemed to be no probability that Paul would have bequeathed his fortune to them. Of course we have no knowledge of the contents of his will at present, but I should think it might be safely assumed that Veronica and Martin had no knowledge of it either. On the other hand, I agree with you that there was the motive of hatred. The whole story is exceedingly involved.”
He paused a moment and then continued: “Your theory assumes that Basil’s suicide was a fortuitous coincidence, having no connection with Paul’s death?”
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