Murder in the Maze (A Clinton Driffield Mystery)

by J. J. Connington

  “It’s got a monogram, E. S., engraved on it,” he said. “This is obviously Friend Ernest’s. You remember he said something about smoking a cigar here. He may have laid the case on his knee and jerked it off without noticing it when he started on his Marathon for safety.”

  He held the case in his hand and seemed to give careful consideration to some point. At last he came to a decision and turned to Wendover.

  “I think we’ll say nothing about this for a day or two, Squire. I may want to send this case up to London to have it examined, perhaps. I can’t say yet. But in the meanwhile we’ll not mention that we found it. Friend Ernest can take his cigars from the box, in the meantime. That’s no great hardship for him.”

  “You think the murderer may have picked it up, and you’ll get his finger-prints from it? It’s a nice smooth surface.”

  Sir Clinton looked up from the case with a gleam of amusement on his features.

  “You’re in charge of the Speculation, Surmise, and Conjecture Department of this firm, Squire. I’m only a humble clerk in the Mum and Dumb Section—telegraphic address: ‘Tongue-tied.’”

  Wendover accepted the tacit rebuke with protest. “Oh, have it your own way,” he said, “I forgot I wasn’t to expect anything from you.”

  Sir Clinton wrapped the cigar-case carefully in his handkerchief and stowed it in his pocket before doing anything further.

  “Now I think we’d better go and have a look at the loophole again,” he suggested. “Though I hardly think it’s likely to have changed much since I saw it last. But I have a sort of feeling that Sherlock would have found something there, and perhaps you might be able to spot it, even if I can’t. That’s the worst of this detective business: one needs an eye for detail, and I never had it.”

  With an air of deep solemnity he led the way to the outer side of the hedge, approached the loophole, and peered into it for a time.

  “No,” he admitted finally with a crestfallen air, “it seems just the same as it was when I saw it last.” He put his hand into the hole.

  “Not even a bird’s nest or any little thing of that kind,” he announced disconsolately. “Ah, we need Sherlock; we need Sherlock. He’d have found some cigar-ash or something of that sort, no doubt. I can’t see it. Have a look yourself, Squire.”

  Rather irritated by the chaff, Wendover stooped and stared into the loophole. He had to confess that he saw nothing in the slightest degree suggestive.

  “No broken twigs where the murderer rested his air-gun?” Sir Clinton inquired. “Have a good look; the price is the same for two peeps as for one. Special terms by the hour, if you care to . . . Ugh! Damn these spiders? That gossamer’s all over the place—filthy, filmy stuff!”

  He rubbed his hand on the hedge while Wendover grinned at his annoyance.

  “Serves you right, Clinton It’ll take your mind off all this persiflage business.”

  Sir Clinton seemed engrossed in removing the remaining filaments from his hand.

  “Pity Sherlock isn’t here,” he let fall in a regretful tone. “He turned into an entomologist of sorts when he retired. Perhaps he could tell us what earthly use spiders can be.”

  “They keep down flies,” said Wendover, instructively.

  “So they do. Illuminating idea! I wish I’d thought of it myself. They keep down flies!”

  “When you’re quite finished being funny, perhaps you’ll get on with your job, Clinton. You’re supposed to be detecting murderers, not delivering lectures on insects.”

  Sir Clinton dropped his jesting tone at once. “Quite right. We ought to be getting along to the police-station now.”

  “Aren’t you going to do any more here?”

  “No.”

  “What about bringing up that dog of yours and seeing if it can do anything?”

  “The dog could do nothing in this case,” said Sir Clinton, definitely. “It would be a waste of time.”

  “Well, you seem to know your own mind about that,” Wendover said, rather wonderingly. “I suppose you know best. But I’d have thought it worth trying.”

  Sir Clinton made no reply, but led the way through the Maze to the car.

  “We’ll call at the police-station on the road home, Squire, if you’ll run us round there. I’m expecting some more reports. And some men must come up here and search for anything left about—not that it really matters. By the way,” he added, casually, “I suppose you know who the murderer is by this time?”

  Wendover could only express astonishment at the question.

  “Well, you’ve had every chance,” was all that Sir Clinton would vouchsafe.

  “If you know who he is, why don’t you arrest him at once?” Wendover demanded.

  “There’s a big gap between knowing a thing and proving it,” said Sir Clinton, cautiously.

  At the police-station the Chief Constable got out of the car and went in to interview his subordinates. In a minute or two he was back again, with some papers in his hands; and they drove on to the Grange.

  “I’ve just time to ring up Ardsley before going upstairs,” he said, when they arrived; and he disappeared in the direction of the telephone. Wendover noticed that this time Sir Clinton closed the door of the room behind him, instead of leaving it ajar as he had done on the previous occasions; so that no sound came out during the conversation.

  “I wonder what he’s up to with that confounded Jack-the-Ripper,” Wendover speculated uneasily, as he went upstairs to dress. “Well, perhaps he’ll tell me something after dinner.”

  But when they had settled themselves in their easy chairs after dinner, he found that Sir Clinton evidently intended to reverse the roles.

  “Now then, Squire, you’re under no restraint of official secrecy. What do you make of the affair so far?”

  “I see. I’m to be Watson, and then you’ll prove what an ass I am. I’m not over keen.”

  Sir Clinton hastened to reassure him.

  “I’m not going to poke fun at you merely for the sake of making you uncomfortable, Squire. It would really be some help if I could see the thing from a fresh point of view. Lord knows, I’m not infallible; and you may quite easily hit on something that’ll put a new light on things and prevent me making a bad mistake.”

  The obvious sincerity of this was enough to placate Wendover. He had been cogitating deeply over the Whistlefield affair, and he felt that if he could not suggest a provable solution of the mystery, at least he could bring a reasonable amount of criticism to bear on the available evidence.

  “What we have to account for,” he began, “are; first, the murder of the two Shandons; second, the burglary; third, the attack on Ernest Shandon; and, fourth, the so-called hanky-panky with the cheque.”

  “That’s correct,” Sir Clinton agreed. “But suppose we leave out the cheque affair at present. We really know nothing definite about it yet.”

  Wendover was dissatisfied with this ruling.

  “It seems to me an essential part in the scheme of things. Let me put the case as I see it. Hackleton is at the back of the whole affair, I take it; but he’s been employing an agent; and that agent has been going beyond Hackleton’s instructions and has been operating on his own to a certain extent. I think that fits everything in the case.”

  Sir Clinton seemed inclined to dispute this conclusion, but he restrained himself and merely nodded to Wendover to continue.

  “I see your objection, I think,” the Squire went on. “You meant to say: ‘Why were both the Shandons murdered when it was only Neville’s death that was essential to Hackleton?’ But there’s quite a plausible explanation of that. You can’t hang a man twice. So if a man decides to commit a single murder, he might as well commit two. The punishment’s the same for a quantity. And if he can commit two with equal impunity—as in the Maze—mightn’t it occur to him that two murders would be a stiffer problem than one murder, in these particular circumstances? Isn’t it the double murder that’s giving all the difficulty? Of course it
is. If either Shandon had been murdered solus, we’d know at once the line to look up. But at present we don’t. Now why shouldn’t the murderer have seen that very point and utilised it?”

  Sir Clinton nodded.

  “That’s ingenious, Squire. I’m not ironical.”

  “I’d rather choose that solution than any of the other possible ones. If you reject it, you’ve got to assume that two independent murderers, both using the same out-of-the-way method, chose to operate simultaneously. The chances against that are miles too big. Or else you have to believe that two cooperating murderers were at work and that each of them thought he had the right victim in front of him. I can’t quite swallow the notion that this was a cooperative affair. The third solution is that the murderer mistook one brother for the other, killed Roger first, and then had to kill Neville to carry out his instructions. He might have had only a general description of Neville Shandon to go on and may have made a mistake in identity.”

  “I doubt if Hackleton would have left any loophole of that sort,” Sir Clinton interrupted. “Neville’s portrait could easily have been bought and given to the murderer. But it’s not worth while arguing the point. The murderer knew the two Shandons perfectly well by sight. I’m sure of my ground there.”

  “You mean the murderer was a local man?” demanded Wendover. “How did you find that out?”

  “I’m not going to tell you at present, Squire. Sorry to play the mystery-man, and all that sort of stuff; but it has to be done.”

  Wendover was plainly distrustful of this point.

  “If it was a local affair, what was the black silk thread, then? The thread we found in the Maze not a couple of hours ago.”

  Sir Clinton closed his eyes as though pondering deeply.

  “Yes, indeed,” he said oracularly, “what was the silk thread?”

  He sat up suddenly and beamed on Wendover.

  “I should say it was a clue.”

  “Damn your leg-pulling,” the Squire broke out. “I shan’t go on, if you’re going to make the whole thing into a farce.”

  Sir Clinton apologised.

  “Sorry. You took a wrong meaning out of what I said. But don’t let’s waste time over it. Please go ahead, Squire.”

  Only partly mollified, Wendover continued his analysis.

  “The next thing is the burglary. That was obviously a case of getting at some document belonging to Neville Shandon. You remember the fragment of notes for his cross-examination that was found in his hand? They got some of his stuff, but clearly they suspected that he might have more notes. So they burgled his room to see if they could find anything further.”

  This time Sir Clinton showed no desire to criticise.

  “Right! On the face of it, the burglary and the murder of Neville Shandon fit together. But the trouble is that the commission of the burglary would show that it was Neville they were after, and hence make the murder of Roger useless as a blind. I merely point out the snag. I’m not trying to carp, Squire.”

  Wendover thought for a minute or more in silence. Then he produced a reply. “The two murders were part of a pre-devised scheme, as I suggested. But afterwards, the murderer found he hadn’t got the documents complete. He had to get them if possible. So he took the risk of the burglary giving the show away.”

  Sir Clinton admitted the possibility of such a case. “But now what about the attack on Ernest Shandon. How does that fit in?”

  “What’ s one murder more or less to a man who has two on his soul already? The attack on Ernest may have been an extra blind, simply, like the murder of Roger Shandon. Suppose they’d got Ernest this afternoon, wouldn’t that have tangled the business up still further?”

  “Admitted, of course. And really Friend Ernest would hardly have been missed. Is that all the theory you have on the point?”

  Wendover was rather doubtful about putting forward his second choice.

  “It might have been a practical joke, of course. Someone with a sense of humour rather out of gear might have had a grudge against the little beast and, knowing he was an arrant coward, they might have stirred him up without meaning to do him any real harm—just used an ordinary air-gun dart.”

  He looked at Sir Clinton suspiciously.

  “You yourself didn’t waste much worry over him, it seemed to me. I thought at the time that you were taking it as a practical joke, somehow.”

  “A very practical joke,” Sir Clinton said, but he kept every tinge of expression out of his voice when he made the comment.

  “Now we can go on to the identity of Hackleton’s agent,” Wendover resumed. “You say it was someone who knew the Shandons by sight. It must have been someone who had leave to come and go at will through the Whistlefield grounds, or else someone who landed on the riverbank. That limits things down a good deal. Roger Shandon didn’t encourage strangers to roam about his place. The gardeners had orders to turn out anyone who ventured in, unless they were going up to the house on business. No stranger or neighbour—bar Costock—was on the premises so far as is known. I came across one of the gardeners and he told me that.”

  Sir Clinton had no hesitation in confirming this.

  “That agrees with all my men have been able to make out.”

  “Then,” Wendover proceeded, “we’re limited down to the people at the house, the staff of the place, and Costock.”

  “Go on,” Sir Clinton encouraged him.

  Wendover pulled a notebook from his pocket and consulted some figures which he had jotted down at the time he heard the original evidence.

  “If you take the facts as we know them,” he went on, “it’s clear that Neville Shandon could not have reached the Maze before 3.37 P. M. and the second murder was over before 4.05 P. M. As a matter of fact, the times really allow less margin than that, for Neville’s body was found at 3.52 P. M. and both were probably dead by that time.”

  “I think that’s quite demonstrable on Torrance’s evidence,” Sir Clinton admitted.

  “That means then that the murderer left the Maze at some time not much earlier than four o’clock, since Miss Forrest heard him in the Maze after Neville’s body was found by Torrance at 3.52 P. M.”

  “Most probable on the face of it.”

  “Then if you find someone in such a position that they could not have been in the Maze at 4 P. M. they’re cleared.”

  “True.”

  Wendover produced from a cupboard an Ordnance Survey map of the district.

  “Let’s take each person in turn and see if we can establish their positions during the afternoon.”

  “I can help you there,” Sir Clinton volunteered. “I got most of it in the police reports. They were busy on that very point.”

  Wendover nodded and began without more ado.

  “Sylvia Hawkhurst. She was out paying a call, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes,” Sir Clinton explained. “She and Friend Ernest went off in the car from the house at about eighteen minutes past three. At a quarter to four—just about the moment when the murders occurred—she was in a shop buying shoe-laces. That precludes any chance of her having used the car to get back to the Maze at the critical time. After that she paid a call on some friends and stayed with them until she came back home after six o’clock.”

  “What about Ernest Shandon?”

  Sir Clinton smiled.

  “Miss Hawkhurst dropped him at the East Gate as she passed out. It’s about two-and-a-half miles to the East Gate, and she says she was driving about fifteen miles an hour—it’s a narrow road, you remember. That means she dropped him at the East Gate at about 3.30. It’s the best part of two miles back to the Maze. Friend Ernest could hardly have walked it in fifteen minutes, could he? And he’s not much of a runner, to judge by his condition this morning. As a matter of fact, his story’s completely confirmed by other evidence. My men interviewed the driver of the post-cart. At 4.20 he came upon Ernest squatting by the roadside, about a mile along the public road, into which the East Gate lead
s. It’s a place where there’s a little wood, easily identifiable. Friend Ernest was sitting there with his boot off, damning the nail that had hurt him.”

  Wendover looked at his map.

  “That clears him. I can see the wood; it’s the only one that abuts on the road in that stretch. Now what about Arthur?”

  “We’ve only his own word for his movements. He certainly set out for the spinney; but that’s all one can say.”

  Wendover scanned his map once more.

  “The spinney’s only a mile from the Maze in a direct line. He might have cut across and got away again; and no one would be any wiser. He had all the afternoon for the affair.”

  His face clouded.

  “Somehow, I don’t think he was responsible, Clinton.”

  Sir Clinton made no direct reply.

  “He was hardly a likely agent for Hackleton to fix on, at any rate,” he observed.

  “Well, let’s get on. What about the gardeners?”

  “Two of them were working in a field about a mile from the Maze all afternoon. Each clears the other.”

  “And the third gardener who was on the spot that day—the man Skene?”

  “His story is that he was working in the kitchen-garden near the house. There’s no evidence against that.”

  “The maids? And the chauffeur?”

  “All accounted for. They had nothing to do with the affair.”

  “And Stenness?”

  Wendover looked keenly at Sir Clinton as he brought out the secretary’s name; but the Chief Constable showed no sign of special interest.

  “Stenness?” he repeated, “Stenness was undoubtedly at the house at twenty to five, or thereabouts, for Miss Forrest saw him when she came back.”

  “Then he’d plenty of time to be down at the Maze at the critical period and get home to the house again while Torrance and Miss Forrest was wandering about in the labyrinth?”

  “He had,” Sir Clinton agreed, gravely.

  “He’d have been the ideal agent for Hackleton,” Wendover pursued. “And if Ernest’s not got the wind up about nothing—which is always possible, of course—Stenness would be worth watching.”

  “He is being watched,” Sir Clinton assured him, and then seemed to regret his confidence.