Comes a Stranger

by E. R. Punshon

  She seemed to think, too, that the errand of her two visitors was to assure themselves of her safety, expressed her appreciation of their concern for her well being, and looked quite surprised when they explained that they wished to see Miss Perkins. Knowing that it would be better to give some reason, if the wildest tales were not soon to be in circulation, the Major added that Mr. Broast reported having seen a stranger hiding near the library in the Lodge grounds and that it was necessary to know if Miss Perkins had also seen him.

  Mrs. Somerville accordingly went upstairs and knocked at Miss Perkins’s door, returning with the information that she would be down in a minute.

  “She doesn’t make an early start, she hasn’t to be at the Lodge till ten,” Mrs. Somerville explained, “and I don’t blame her for wanting her rest, her not being strong, and needing it, working all hours, too, like a driven slave, and the only chance she ever has for a breath of fresh air when she’s coming and going to work.”

  “Too bad,” said Bobby, while the Major, scowling and impatient, for he had some domestic experience of what “down in a minute” might mean, was looking alternately at his watch and the door, “does she never take a little walk in the evenings before bed?”

  “Oh, no, fair wore out she is when she gets home and glad enough to rest with a bit of sewing and the wireless. She always says she’s quite got out of walking in a manner of speaking with sitting all day with those musty old books.”

  “She ought to try cycling,” Bobby suggested; “she could still be sitting and yet have exercise and fresh air all the same.”

  “Well, now, it’s funny you should say that,” Mrs. Somerville remarked, “for it’s what I’m always telling her, me being a great one for cycling. But some way she can’t learn. Nervous. That’s what it is. Goes all of a wobble and flop over and then she won’t try again. She says the first time she ever tried to go alone, before she came here, she ran right into a baker’s cart and might have been killed, and now it’s just as if she couldn’t manage her arms and legs and in a manner of speaking no sooner she’s on than she’s off. Nervous.”

  As if to confirm this verdict there became audible, floating to them down the narrow cottage stairs, the sound of Miss Perkins’s nervous little giggle.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said, fluttering down the stairs. “Isn’t it Awful? It doesn’t seem as if it could be, not here, not Murder. Oh, do they know who it is was killed?”

  Major Harley hesitated. He was an official and thoroughly imbued with the official view that none of the public should ever be told anything that could possibly be kept from them. None of their business, anyhow. But Mr. Nat Kayne’s name would certainly soon be known, indeed was probably already known throughout the greater part of the neighbourhood.

  “It’s Mr. Nat Kayne,” he said.

  Mrs. Somerville gave a faint scream and said it couldn’t be, not Mr. Nat; why, she had seen him herself only the day before as well as ever he was in his life. Miss Perkins stood still and frozen. Her face grew ghastly, a kind of wild bewilderment showed in her expression. The two men watched her curiously. Mrs. Somerville’s babblings died into silence, as though abruptly extinguished. In a low, uncertain voice, Miss Perkins said:

  “No… no… no… not him.”

  Neither the Major nor Bobby answered her. Mrs. Somerville began to look frightened. About the girl there seemed such an agony of dread and doubt as though even the balance of her reason shook. She lifted a slow hand and crooked a finger at them, at Bobby and the Major. She said in the same low, uncertain voice:

  “It isn’t—true. It isn’t—true. No.”

  “I’m afraid there’s no doubt,” Major Harley said.

  “It can’t be,” she repeated. Then when they did not answer she seemed to draw herself together, by an effort of every force of will and nerve that she possessed, recovering a self-control that had nearly left her altogether. She put her hands together and held them before her. She said,

  “Nat Kayne… it is Nat Kayne? Nat… not Nat?... not someone else?”

  “No, it is Mr. Kayne,” the Major repeated, a little offended by her use of the dead man’s Christian name.

  “Ah, yes,” she said. “I see.” She stood upright and still. Then she said: “How did it happen? It was in the sunken lane through the wood?”

  “Only think of it,” interposed Mrs. Somerville, “and all the many times I’ve been that way myself, and him such a good-looking young gentleman, almost like some of them that’s in the pictures.”

  “Yes, it was in the lane, about ten last night,” the Major said.

  “In the lane at ten last night,” Miss Perkins repeated, and still her looks, her voice, her manner, were a little wild. “Last night at ten while we were sitting here, listening to the wireless.”

  “You were, but not me,” said Mrs. Somerville, “I had only just got in, and him such a nice gentleman, with a pleasant word for all.”

  “Yes, he had, hadn’t he?” agreed Miss Perkins. She seemed more natural now, her self control more assured. She said: “He was handsome as a dream—a Greek god. Mr. Broast said so himself. He was shot—did you say he was shot? Do they know who did it? Why? why should… anyone? Him? Why should it be him?”

  The major explained that every possible step was being taken to discover the murderer. At present they hadn’t much to go on, even the weapon used by the murderer had not yet been found, though a careful search was being made.

  “We couldn’t do much last night,” he told them, “but I arranged for some of my men to be there as soon as it was light. We’ll find it, if we have to go over the whole place with a comb.”

  “When you do find it,” Miss Perkins said, “most likely that will show who it was.”

  The Major remarked that at any rate it would be a very useful and significant indication, and then went on to explain that the object of their visit was to know if Miss Perkins could confirm in any way Mr. Broast’s statement that a stranger had been seen lurking near the library, and, if so, if she could give any description of him. But Miss Perkins, it appeared, had seen nothing herself. Mr. Broast had mentioned the incident to her, and had seemed disturbed. But that was all she knew. Mr. Broast was always nervous about burglars, she added.

  The Major thanked her, said they would like a statement from her in writing, and so managed to get her alone with himself and Bobby into the little front sitting-room, while Mrs. Somerville, called away to take in her morning’s supply of milk, exchanged news and confidences with the milk-man, and acquired much prestige from the fact that she had recently been conversing with the chief constable himself, who was even then actually in the house, along with another detective gentleman.

  In the little parlour Major Harley was saying:

  “There’s something else we wanted to mention, Miss Perkins. It’s a rather odd story we’ve been told about something seen in the library last night.”

  On a nod from the chief constable Bobby repeated as exactly as he could Virtue’s tale of the body he declared he had seen through one of the library windows. She listened gravely and in silence, without that perpetual giggle of hers, without once interrupting to say she was so sorry, without even any of those exclamations of surprise and incredulity Bobby felt would have been natural. It seemed indeed as though she were hardly attending, or, rather, that she was finding it almost impossible to keep her attention on what she was listening to when her mind was full of the tragedy of which she had just heard. When Bobby ceased she seemed to draw herself together. She said:

  “It sounds very funny, doesn’t it? I should think he made it up. It’s the young American gentleman you mean, the one that’s staying in the village?”

  “Yes,” said Bobby. “You’ve seen him, I suppose.”

  “Only once,” she answered. She gave her little giggle again, and seemed now to be more like her usual self. “He’s very nice looking,” she said. “Not like Mr. Nat, though.” She paused and her face seemed as it were to
crumple up, though only momentarily. Recovering herself, she went on: “You don’t think it was him, do you? Why should he? I mean, why should he want to shoot Mr. Nat? They didn’t know each other. He called at the library Wednesday, I think—Mr. Virtue, I mean. He wanted Mr. Broast to let him go over it. Mr. Broast wouldn’t. He said he hadn’t time, he said he wasn’t going to act as guide to every fool of a tourist that came along. He said he didn’t like Americans anyhow, except when they buy his books he wants to sell and then he always asks more from them than he would from anyone else. They keep asking questions, trying to find out things, poking about everywhere. Mr. Broast hates that. Mr. Virtue wrote once or twice, too, but it didn’t make any difference.”

  “Did Mr. Virtue give any special reason for wanting to see over the library?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t think so; of course it’s awfully famous,” answered Miss Perkins. “I’m so sorry.” Then she added: “How could he see anything at all—Mr. Virtue, I mean? There’s no lights in the library and shutters, too.”

  Bobby questioned her on this point, but she was quite clear that the shutters had been closed as usual at dusk. She had helped in the task herself and she was sure all of them had been carefully fastened. Of course, they might have been opened again. That was possible, evidently, but, if so, she knew nothing about it, and did not understand who could have done such a thing without the knowledge of Mr. Broast or of herself or the inmates of the house.

  “The dead man Virtue saw, if he’s telling the truth,” observed Major Harley, “might have opened them himself to escape by.”

  Miss Perkins screamed faintly, said not Two dead men, oh, not Two, and then apologised and said she was so sorry.

  “Difficult to understand,” agreed Bobby. “Now, Miss Perkins, there’s something else we have to ask you about. Please be very careful in answering.” He repeated slowly, emphasizing each detail, the description given by Virtue of the features of the body he said he had seen. When Bobby had finished, he said: “Does that description suggest anything, bring anything to your mind? Please think carefully?”

  Miss Perkins was gaping at him. She had every appearance of utter astonishment. She said slowly:

  “It sounds just like a friend of mine. I’ve a photograph. Only it can’t be. How can it?”

  “Do you mind letting us see it?”

  “The photograph?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “But it’s silly,” she protested. “It’s just silly.”

  “It does seem extraordinary,” Bobby agreed. “That’s why we have to ask about it.”

  “I don’t understand,” she repeated. She was plainly uneasy and alarmed, on the defensive. Not that there was now in her expression that extremity of horror and of wild amaze she had shown before. It was more a kind of incredulous astonishment she displayed, mingled with a sort of alert doubtfulness. Suddenly she gave her familiar giggle. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’ll go and get it.”

  She left the room and they heard her run upstairs Major Harley said:

  “She’s upset. I can guess why. Eh?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t, sir,” Bobby said, for indeed at the moment he saw no reasonable explanation.

  “She’ll bring someone else’s photo,” the Major went on. “You see if she doesn’t. It’ll be a pointer.”

  Bobby wondered why, and in what direction. Miss Perkins came back. She was normal again now, once more her usual fluttering nervous self, full of giggles and apologies.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said. “Oh, I expect it’s this one, isn’t it?”

  The one she showed answered in fact very closely to the description Virtue had given. The abnormality of the left ear was plainly visible. On the back Bobby found the name and address of a New York photographer.

  “Would you mind telling us who this is and where he is now?” Bobby asked.

  “I’m so sorry,” Miss Perkins said helplessly. “I’m afraid… what I mean is… you see…”

  “Our information,” interposed the Major, “is that it’s the young man you’re engaged to?”

  “That’s right,” she admitted. “I am,” she said defiantly. “It’s quite true. Only he’s abroad.” She hesitated, looked pitiful. “He’s been abroad a long time,” she almost whispered. “Sometimes I think he won’t come back.”

  “I see,” said the Major, a little awkwardly. “I’m sorry to have to press you. I’m afraid it’s necessary. Of course, it’s all quite confidential. We shouldn’t bother you about your private affairs unless we had to. It’s necessary to investigate this story Mr Virtue tells, especially in view of what happened last night. In a case of murder everything must be cleared up.”

  “Murder?” she repeated. “Murder—couldn’t it have been—an accident? a mistake?”

  The Major shook his head. One shot might be an accident, he agreed, not three. Three meant deliberation, determination, He took up the questioning now. Bit by bit he got her simple story from her. She had been born in Fromavon the great west-country port. She had never known her father or any relatives. There was some quarrel and her mother had left them. When her mother died, they refused to have anything to do with her or help in any way. She had been brought up by the woman in whose charge her mother had left her, together with a small sum of money to pay for her keep. When that became exhausted the woman had continued to give her shelter, but had turned her into a useful, unpaid little maid-of-all-work. She had managed to teach herself shorthand and typing, and had obtained work in London and then her present position with Mr. Broast. It was when she was in London she had met Mr. Cadman, the original of the photograph. They had become engaged, but he had been obliged to return to America on business. She admitted she had not heard from him since his departure, and it was quite plain she had little hope that any message would ever arrive. Apparently she had nothing more to tell, and after a few more questions they thanked her, asked permission to keep the photograph for a time, and so departed.”

  “Pathetic little thing, pathetic little story,” said the Major, as they settled themselves in their car. “Repressed sex. Most likely she was never engaged to this Mr. Cadman at all. Probably they met, he may have taken her out once or twice perhaps, somehow she got hold of his photograph, and she imagined all the rest of it. Pure romance. Did you notice how really distressed she was about poor Nat Kayne’s death?”

  “Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby slowly. “I didn’t quite understand—I thought of calling that Point M. I mean, whether there is some connection or explanation we don’t know about. I thought she was going to collapse utterly.”

  “Repressed sex again,” explained the Major. “She was in love with him. Didn’t you notice the way she talked about his good looks? I’ll bet a good deal she’s got hold of a photograph she shows of her fiancé. I’ve known cases—these sex starved, unattractive women. Pathetic, you know.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Bobby.

  “Anyhow, it seems clearly established there can be no connection between her and Virtue,” decided the Major. “We had better see him next and hear what he has to say for himself.”

  CHAPTER X

  THE PHOTOGRAPH AND MR. VIRTUE

  On their way through the village to the Wynton Arms, the Major stopped at the little police station and spent there a few energetic moments at the ’phone and reading reports that had come in. Having thus assured himself that the various orders he had issued were being carried out, he joined Bobby, who had waited in the car outside. He said to him:

  “Nothing about the pistol yet. If it doesn’t turn up, I’ll offer a reward. Of course, the murderer may have it in his pocket still. Anyhow, I can’t have all my men tied up in that wood, wasting their time raking it over. Plenty for them to do. We aren’t like you people in London with a force twenty thousand strong to call on.”

  Bobby fairly gasped. Twenty thousand men to call on, perhaps, but twenty thousand jobs for them to attend to, and press and public all ready to rais
e a howl if a constable wasn’t always there just when and as required.

  “Well sir,” he began in a voice trembling with indignation, but the Major wasn’t listening. He said as he started the car:

  “I wonder if they would give the kids a holiday from school. If I could get them turned loose on the job and the pistol is anywhere about they might find it. Sharp eyes, kiddies have. Might try it, only then I should have to warn them not to touch it, and of course they would and probably shoot themselves. Then the fat would be in the fire. Better not try it, perhaps. Oh, there’s a temporary authority through from London about you, and it’ll go in at once for confirmation—detailed for provincial assistance. Here we are,” he added as they drew up before the ancient inn, one half of which looked as if it might tumble down at any moment while the other half was brand new in red brick and sham half timber. “What’s happening, though?”

  An ancient-looking car was standing before the inn. An elderly man walked briskly from it towards the car. Mr. Drew, the landlord, stood at the inn threshold, looking on. Robins, porter, garage attendant, and general factotum, was in the act of placing a suit-case in the car. Bobby said:

  “That’s Mr. Adams, the man Mr. Broast said he saw—hanging round the library last night.”

  “Doing a bunk, eh?” said the Major darkly. “Looks bad. Can’t have it, anyhow.”

  He jumped out. Mr. Adams saw him and with a startled air jumped in and shouted to his driver to hurry. The Major shouted to him to stop, and the driver was evidently not quite sure which to obey. The Major said:

  “Police.”

  Magic word. The driver doubted no more where obedience lay. Mr. Adams put his head out of the window.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. “I can’t wait. I’ve a train to catch.”