Murder in the Maze (A Clinton Driffield Mystery)

by J. J. Connington

  Sir Clinton handed back the will and rose to his feet as the secretary restored the document to the safe.

  “I see you have a key of that thing?”

  Stenness closed the safe and put the key back into his pocket.

  “Yes, Mr. Shandon told me to keep this one. I’ve been arranging the papers for him and it was more convenient that I should have the key. It saved him the bother of always handing it over when I needed it.”

  “You hadn’t a key in Roger Shandon’s time?”

  “No, Roger was rather a different sort of person.”

  “By the way, Mr. Stenness, are you staying on here as secretary to Ernest Shandon?”

  Stenness seemed slightly taken aback by the question.

  “There’s no definite arrangement, so far. I’m staying until the estate affairs have been cleared up; but after that I doubt if I shall remain here. I can do better than this.”

  “I suppose you could,” Sir Clinton agreed indifferently.

  He looked at his watch.

  “I want to see Dr. Ardsley now. I’m rather in a hurry at present; but there are one or two more questions I want to put to you sometime, Mr. Stenness. Will you be free after dinner to-night? Very well, I’ll come across then. Now, if you could let Dr. Ardsley know I’m here.”

  Stenness was evidently a prompt messenger, for Ardsley appeared almost at once. Wendover scanned his face eagerly as he came into the room. Here was the person who might be able to set their minds at ease. But Ardsley’s countenance gave him no cause for raising his spirits. It betrayed nothing but gloom and anxiety.

  “She’s much worse. I’d hoped for a rally after that attack in the night, but she hasn’t pulled herself together.”

  “Tell us plainly what you think,” demanded Sir Clinton. “You needn’t beat about the bush where we’re concerned.”

  Ardsley’s face seemed to grow, if anything, graver than before.

  “I can hold out no great hope. Frankly, I think it will be all up soon—to-night, perhaps.”

  No one seemed inclined to speak. Wendover was trying to force himself to face what now seemed inevitable. Death often came swiftly; but the circumstances of Sylvia’s tragedy gave it a quality which ordinary deaths do not possess. He could hardly assure himself that the whole thing was not a nightmare. There seemed to be something so aimless in the whole business, the killing of a young girl against whom no one could conceivably harbour any personal grudge. The inhuman purposelessness which had cut Sylvia down on the threshold of her life seemed more terrible to him than any planned scheme would have done; for a calculated crime would imply a motive whereas this deed seemed to have arisen out of mere chaos—something outside normal things.

  Sir Clinton took a step towards the door and then seemed to change his mind.

  “Do you think you could get some vinegar and some washing soda?” he asked, turning to Ardsley. “There’s something I’d like to be sure about; and it might be as well that an expert should see it.”

  Ardsley had no difficulty in procuring what was wanted. As the doctor in charge of Sylvia, he had only to ask for anything. A couple of tumblers and a water-carafe were brought as well, at Sir Clinton’s request.

  “Now you can put your back against the door, Squire. We don’t want any visitors.”

  From a tiny glass bottle which he drew from his pocket, the Chief Constable extracted one of the ill-omened darts.

  “This is the one which wounded Miss Hawkhurst,” he explained, as he dropped it into a glass of water. “Now we’ll need to give it time.”

  He stirred it round occasionally; and gradually a faint bluish tinge communicated itself to the water. Ardsley was scrutinising the glass with deep interest but his face showed nothing of the thoughts in his mind.

  “Now we add a drop of vinegar, Squire,” said Sir Clinton, suiting the action to the word.

  As the vinegar mixed with the solution, Wendover saw a change in the tint—a pale red replaced the original blue.

  “Now some washing soda, for a change,” said Sir Clinton, dropping in a crystal and swirling the liquid round in the glass. As he did so, the blue tinge returned to the solution.

  Ardsley nodded approvingly.

  “Litmus, obviously. That clinches it. You must be a bit of a chemist to have hit on that tip.”

  Sir Clinton made no reply, but he cautioned Wendover to bear the test in mind.

  “If that’s all you want, I’ll go back to Miss Hawkhurst,” Ardsley said, as soon as Sir Clinton ceased speaking.

  “We’re going back to the Grange, now,” Sir Clinton explained. “If you need me, you’ve only to ring up.”

  “I thought you were in a hurry,” Wendover said in some surprise when he found that Sir Clinton seemed to have nothing on hand after their return to the Grange. “You broke off your talk with Stenness on that excuse. Why not have finished it at the time, instead of trailing over there again later in the day?”

  “I’m worried about Miss Hawkhurst, Squire; and I prefer to get my news direct from Ardsley rather than over the ’phone.”

  “You didn’t get much out of him this morning,” Wendover complained. “And I can’t think why you put that man into the business at all. It seems to me tempting Providence. Why, he’s quite possibly the source of the original curare, for all you know; he’s one of the suspects.”

  “He’s not on my list of suspects, Squire; and if he’s on yours, you may score him off straight away. That’s definite. As to my using him, who could do the work better? What would a country G.P. make of Miss Hawkhurst’s case? Nothing whatever! You can’t expect rural medicos to be the last word in the study of out-of-the-way poisons. It’s not reasonable to ask it.”

  Wendover’s increasing disquietude found its relief in speech at last.

  “I can’t think what your aim is in this affair, Clinton. You say you know the murderer. Why don’t you arrest him at once? You claimed to know him days ago; and yet you did nothing. And now you’ve let things drift; and the result has been this attack on Sylvia Hawkhurst. Why, you’re responsible for that! You were criminally careless with these poison darts, leaving them lying about for anyone to pick up.”

  Sir Clinton made no defence. Instead, he turned Wendover’s vehemence into another channel.

  “It’s easy to say ‘Arrest somebody!’ Suppose you were in my shoes, Squire, and you wanted to be absolutely on the safe side; whom would you arrest at this very moment?”

  Under the spur of the direct question, Wendover had a flash of illumination:

  “Ernest Shandon,” he said. “I’ve just been thinking over things, and I’ve seen one or two points in a fresh light. Who was it opened the window last night and so made it possible for the murderer to shoot into the room? Ernest Shandon! Who was out of the room when the shot was fired? Ernest Shandon! Where was he? In the winter-garden, which has a door opening close to the bank of rhododendrons in which the murderer hid himself. Who had access to that stock of curare in the museum? Ernest Shandon!”

  Sir Clinton failed to repress a smile, though he did his best.

  “And who was attacked himself, in the Maze? Ernest Shandon! And who was sitting with a nail in his boot on the public highway that afternoon when his brothers were killed? Ernest Shandon! Let’s complete the tale, you know, before we begin to talk about arrests. The real truth of the matter is that Ernest Shandon has annoyed you by his cowardice and his general selfishness, and, therefore, you think he’d be all the better for a hanging. You’re beginning to see red here, just as you saw red in Ardsley’s case.”

  Wendover sullenly admitted his blunder.

  “But there’s another person who ought to be under observation—young Hawkhurst,” he continued. “That young beggar seems to me hardly sane at times. Look at him this morning! That cerebrospinal affair has affected him far more than I supposed . . .”

  He broke off, struck by a fresh idea.

  “Is he the person you have your eye on, Clinton? I never t
hought of that! Now that might account for the thing that’s been puzzling me—the damned aimlessness of all the Whistlefield affair. It’s just the sort of thing a lunatic would do. And they say that in a sleepy sickness case, if it turns to homicidal mania, the creature may go for the nearest relations. Just what’s happened at Whistlefield! And it was he who put on the loud-speaker last night and so covered any noise he might have made in getting into position outside the window. I hadn’t thought of that before. And it was his air-gun that I found in the rhododendrons.”

  This time, Sir Clinton did not smile.

  “I don’t mind admitting to you, Squire, that young Hawkhurst is one of my difficulties.”

  Wendover returned to his original charge.

  “Well, I can’t understand what you’re driving at, Clinton. On the face of things, it seems to me that you’ve gambled away that poor girl’s life merely to get a case that you can prove: and now you’re no nearer it than you were before.”

  Sir Clinton’s face grew very grave.

  “You’ve touched a sore spot there, Squire. But did it never occur to you that I didn’t expect an attack on Miss Hawkhurst? What I did expect was something quite different. Didn’t it strike you as peculiar that I angled for that invitation to play bridge when it obviously wasn’t the sort of thing that one expects? I had to put on a pretty tough hide to wangle that with a straight face.”

  “Yes,” Wendover confirmed, “it was a piece of rank bad taste and I was surprised at your doing it.”

  “It was. And I’m not usually celebrated for that kind of thing. Don’t you see what I was driving at, Squire? I expected the next attack to be made on myself—and I took good care to make an opportunity for it by going on to the murderer’s own ground. The whole bridge-party affair was a plant of mine to make myself a good target for the air-gun expert.”

  “My godfathers!” Wendover ejaculated in surprise, “I never thought that was what you were after. You’ve got fair nerves, Clinton, to offer yourself up like that to be shot at.”

  “I’d rather take it when I was ready for it than have it unexpectedly—hence the bridge-party. I felt he’d hardly be able to resist the chance of a sitting shot.”

  “H’m! I don’t know that I’d have been able to screw myself up to that point.”

  “Of course you would! You didn’t hesitate over the risk of going after the fellow, through the window.”

  “Yes,” Wendover admitted, “but that was in hot blood, which is rather different.”

  Sir Clinton brushed this aside.

  “The trouble is that I didn’t get what I wanted, after all. Miss Hawkhurst was hit. But you may remember that just when the brute pulled the trigger, she leaned slightly forward and put out her hand, whilst I happened to lean back. The dart went past you, and it struck her arm; but I can’t for the life of me be sure whether that was an accident or not. If I knew whether that shot was meant for me or for her, I’d know rather more about the case than I do; and I’d be in an easier frame of mind, I can tell you.”

  A fresh point seemed to occur to him.

  “By the way, Squire, your surmise about the fate of the air-gun in the first attacks turns out to be correct. My men have been dragging the river near the bank at the boat-house; and we’ve got the air-gun that killed the two Shandons. The murderer must have pitched it into the water just as you suggested.”

  Wendover was distinctly pleased at this tribute to his acuteness.

  “Is there anything identifiable about it?” he demanded.

  “It seems to have come from the Whistlefield armoury,” Sir Clinton replied. “Confound them, I wish they hadn’t gone in so strong for air-guns. It makes things more difficult.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Forged Cheque

  Sir Clinton had yet another surprise in store for his host. Just before dinner, he apparently made up his mind to ring up Whistlefield; and to Wendover’s astonishment he suggested that the Squire should accompany him to the telephone.

  “You’ll hear only one side of the conversation,” he said, with a rather grim expression, “but I think it may interest you. And perhaps it will be just as well to have a witness to testify about my end of the wire. I wish we had two receivers, for then you would have heard the whole thing.”

  He got the connection in a moment or two and then astounded Wendover by asking for Ernest Shandon instead of Ardsley. After a few minutes, Wendover heard the beginning of the conversation.

  “Sir Clinton Driffield speaking. Mr. Shandon, you must treat this as absolutely confidential. . . . Absolutely for yourself. Not a breath of it to anyone else, you understand? . . . I want you to keep an eye on your secretary. . . . Yes, Stenness. I want him kept under observation. If you see him leave the house, ring me up immediately. . . . Yes, at once. . . . It won’t be for long. I’m coming across very shortly. . . . I didn’t catch that. . . . Yes, you weren’t far out in your suspicions. Most fortunate you mentioned the matter of the cheque. . . . Anything further? Do you mean about the murderer? . . . Oh, I think I’ll have him to-morrow, quite possibly—if he doesn’t bolt. . . . If he doesn’t bolt, I said. That’s the only thing I’m afraid of. . . . Yes, I’m sure that would interest you. After all, one’s skin is one’s dearest possession. Good-night. We shall be across shortly after dinner.”

  Wendover had been able to gather the gist of the conversation from the side which he had heard.

  “You’re afraid of Stenness doing a bolt? And you think he’s the man you’re after?”

  “Really, Squire, you must take a reef in your questions?” Sir Clinton said, reproachfully. “I stretched a point to let you hear that talk; and I certainly didn’t intend to stand a cross-examination about it. You must make what you can out of it for yourself. And that reminds me, I’m afraid you can’t be present when I interview Master Stenness. You’ll just have to be a private caller this evening and wait for results till later.”

  Wendover was not particularly pleased with this last news. He had evidently counted on hearing what Sir Clinton had to say to the secretary. However, he realised that he was in the hands of the Chief Constable and must do as he was told; so when they arrived at Whistlefield, he asked for Ernest Shandon while Sir Clinton went into the study to interview Stenness.

  The secretary arrived in a few moments. He was still looking very anxious, perhaps even more anxious than in the morning. Sir Clinton wasted no time but came to grips with the subject at once.

  “Now, Mr. Stenness, I’ve one or two questions to put to you. I may as well caution you that anything you say may be used against you if you are put on your trial.”

  Stenness’ face betrayed less surprise than might have been expected.

  “You say ‘if,’ but perhaps you mean ‘when’?”

  “I’m picking my words with some care,” Sir Clinton assured him. “I mean ‘if.’ The point’s still in doubt; but I want to play the game with you and take no improper advantage.”

  The imperturbable face of the secretary showed neither relief nor depression.

  “It’s very good of you,” he said in a colourless voice.

  Sir Clinton considered for a moment. Stenness moved over to a chair and sat down.

  “I think I can put my cards on the table in your case, Stenness,” the Chief Constable said at length. “Nothing I’m going to tell you will be news to you; and there seems no reason why I shouldn’t say it.”

  Stenness looked up indifferently. His mind seemed to be occupied with something quite apart from the affair in hand.

  “Go on,” he said, apathetically.

  “Here are the facts, then,” Sir Clinton began. “You were employed here as Roger Shandon’s secretary. In that capacity, you seem to have had access to his cheque-books. It’s not a usual thing; but I have sound reasons for supposing that it was so in your case.”

  Stenness nodded his assent.

  “I don’t deny that,” he admitted.

  “You have the key of the saf
e, haven’t you? Would you mind seeing if you can find the cheque-book that Roger Shandon used last?”

  Stenness walked over to the safe, opened it, and after a few moment’s search he unearthed the cheque-book.

  “Now,” Sir Clinton went on, “would you mind turning up the counter-foil numbered 60073?”

  Stenness looked up without showing any emotion on his features.

  “There’s no such counterfoil in the book,” he admitted.

  “But you find 60072 and 60074 there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Rather a peculiar state of affairs, isn’t it?”

  “It is.”

  Sir Clinton turned to another subject.

  “There’s a bundle of returned cheques in that drawer of the writing-desk, isn’t there?”

  “There is. Do you want it?”

  Sir Clinton seemed to disregard the question.

  “Would it surprise you, Stenness, if you learned that one of these cheques has been abstracted and that it can’t be found? The bank returned it in due course for all that.”

  Stenness gazed stonily at his interlocutors.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest.”

  Sir Clinton paused for a moment before continuing. When he spoke again it was in different vein.

  “These are all plain facts. Now we come to hypothesis; and of course the ground’s not quite so firm. I think, if you don’t mind, we might put in it the form of one of these John Doe and Richard Roe cases, lest you should think. . . .”

  He left the sentence incomplete.

  “Now,” he began briskly, “let’s suppose that John Doe is a rich man who has made his money in rather peculiar ways—like the late Roger Shandon, for example. He employs a secretary. I think one may reasonably suppose that a secretary in that case would need to be somebody who could shut his eyes when necessary, and who wouldn’t be apt to judge things too rigidly. In fact, Stenness, he would need to be a fairly unscrupulous fellow himself.”