Death at Swaythling Court

by J. J. Connington

  He pondered for a moment or two, then apparently took a decision.

  “Well, anyway, you must make out that warrant and we must go through with it. It’s the last trump in the game; and when he sees it coming he may make a breakaway. If he does, you needn’t raise too much of a hue-and-cry, you know.”

  Colonel Sanderstead was no loiterer when action was needed.

  “Let’s get on with it, Cyril. You know that if the fellow once gets out of my jurisdiction, my warrant’s no good until it’s backed by the local magistrate. I’ll sign the thing now. But you’ll need to swear an information, you know. Can’t issue a warrant without that.”

  “Bring out your Bible, uncle. That won’t take long.”

  “Another thing,” the Colonel added as an afterthought, “perhaps it would be as well to bring in Bolam as a witness. We’re relations, you know; and it might look a bit fishy if we had no third party present—rather too much of a family affair.”

  “Yes,” conceded Cyril, reluctantly. “But in that case I’m not going to mention Jimmy’s name. I’ll swear to Hubbard having tried blackmail. I suppose that’s enough?”

  Bolam was recalled to the room; the Colonel procured a Testament and handed it to Cyril Norton.

  “You’re a witness, Bolam. Pay attention.”

  “I swear that the person known to me as William Blayre Hubbard, residing at Swaythling Court in this county, has attempted to extort money by means of menaces, so help me God.”

  “You heard that, Bolam?” inquired the Colonel.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Colonel searched in his desk, produced a paper, filled in the blanks, and signed it.

  “There’s your warrant, Bolam. It’s to be executed at once.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  While Bolam was stowing the paper in his pocket, the Colonel had a fresh thought.

  “I think we’ll go over in the car, Bolam, it’ll save you a trudge; and I have a sort of fancy to see this arrest made. Just in case the fellow makes a statement, or anything of that sort, you know.”

  He rang the bell and ordered the car to be brought round. Cyril Norton pulled on his gloves. As he did so, he threw a glance at his uncle which seemed to suggest a doubt as to the propriety of this procedure. The Colonel caught it and evidently felt that an explanation was required.

  “Wait for us in the car, Bolam.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  When Bolam was out of earshot, the Colonel turned to Cyril.

  “I think it would be just as well that I should be there when the arrest’s made. Bolam’s a sound fellow; but this creature Hubbard will be like a rat in a trap—fit to bite out of sheer panic. And he might have arms, for all one can tell. I can’t let Bolam take a risk that I wouldn’t take myself, you see?”

  “That’s an idea,” Cyril admitted. “Not that I think much of Hubbard as a gunman. Still, one never knows. I think I’ll tack myself on to the party, on that basis, if you don’t mind. Three ought to be enough to take him on, even at the worst. And I’d rather like to see the result of my efforts.”

  He smiled grimly and buttoned up his overalls as he spoke. The jest was lost on the Colonel, who was thinking of something else.

  “Won’t you come in the car with us?”

  “No. I’ve got my bike here; and I can get home on it after we’ve nabbed the swine—if he’s waited for that. I’ll just dog along behind you. Hadn’t we better be moving? Time’s getting on.”

  Together they went down to the car, in which Bolam was sitting beside the chauffeur.

  “Swaythling Court,” the Colonel ordered.

  Chapter Four

  What They Found

  LOOKING between the shoulders of Bolam and the chauffeur as his car drove up the avenue from the Swaythling lodge-gate, Colonel Sanderstead incuriously noted that there had been rain on the previous evening; for the surface of the road seemed to be moist without being actually muddy. Then, with a sudden quickening of attention, he perceived something of more immediate interest: the wheel-tracks of a car which had left its trace along the whole length of the avenue.

  “We’ve missed him,” reflected the Colonel, not without a certain satisfaction. After all, if Hubbard had taken the hint and decamped in time to evade arrest, matters would be considerably simplified. There would be none of the washing of dirty linen which the Colonel dreaded. Certainly, if the blackmailer had learned his lesson and taken to flight, there would be no need for a hue-and-cry. Hubbard’s teeth would be drawn; and that was the main thing.

  “Pity that he’s got off scot-free, though,” was the Colonel’s after-thought. “Hanging’s too good for a crime of that sort.”

  The car swung round a turn in the avenue and drew up before the perron of the front entrance to Swaythling Court. Bolam jumped down from his place and opened the tonneau door for the Colonel, whilst almost immediately Cyril’s motor-cycle drew up behind the car.

  “Just wait here, Kearney,” the Colonel ordered; then, followed by Cyril and the constable, he began to ascend the steps.

  “Hullo! Here’s a dog.”

  Colonel Sanderstead had a way with dogs; they seemed instantly to recognize a friend in him; and this beast was no exception. The Colonel stooped and patted it kindly.

  “Cyril, this poor brute’s half-dead with cold. It’s nearly shivering itself off its feet. They must have left it outside all night—careless sweeps! No wonder it’s half-frozen with a temperature like this.”

  He fondled the dog for a moment and then turned back to the business in hand. But as he rose from caressing the beast, his eye caught something lying on the step beside the jamb of the door; and he stooped again to pick it up.

  “What’s that you’ve got?” asked Cyril Norton, who had seen the movement.

  The Colonel straightened himself up and looked at his find.

  “It seems to be a Yale key.”

  He glanced at the door and noted the brass disk of the lock.

  “It may be a latch-key of this door. That’s a rum affair.”

  Keeping the key in his hand, he rang the bell loudly and they waited for the opening of the door. A minute passed; and nothing moved in the house. The Colonel rang a second time, with the same result.

  “No reply! Surely somebody must be awake in the place. Let’s have another try.”

  But the third attempt was equally unsuccessful in eliciting any sign of life within the house. The constable put his ear to the door for a time while the Colonel rang a fourth peal on the bell.

  “Nobody there, sir. Shall I go round to the back and try at the tradesmen’s entrance?”

  The Colonel reflected for a moment or two, then came to a decision. He tried the key in the lock and it turned without difficulty.

  “I’m rather rusty in the law about entering a man’s house; but I think we ought to look further into this affair. Come along, Bolam. I’ll take the responsibility, if we do happen to be exceeding our powers.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Pushing the door open, the Colonel entered the house and then, motioning for silence, he listened intently. Not a sound came from the interior. In his parade voice, Colonel Sanderstead inquired: “Is there anybody here?” There was no response.

  “Very rum.”

  “Sir, they’ve left the electric light burning in broad daylight.”

  The Colonel, following the constable’s outstretched arm, perceived the glow of the hall lamps which the daylight had dimmed.

  “Well, we’ll go further into it. Come along, Bolam.”

  They moved down the hall, the Colonel in advance; but suddenly he halted and picked something off a rug. Holding the object gingerly between two fingers, he turned round and showed it to them: a tiny automatic pistol.

  “A 0·22 calibre,” he commented. “Now who would carry a toy like that? Only a crack shot or a fool.”

  “What the devil’s this?” Cyril Norton broke out in genuine astonishment. “We seem to have blundered
into the first chapter of a dime novel. Very rum, as you say, uncle. Damned rum, if you ask me. I don’t half like it.”

  The Colonel looked for a moment at the puzzled faces of his companions, as though hoping to find a solution of the mystery there; then he carefully placed the pistol on one of the chairs.

  “It might have finger-marks on it, you know.”

  Cyril Norton stooped and examined the tiny weapon, pushing a twisted corner of his handkerchief into the muzzle. When he stood up again, they could see that he was completely mystified.

  “It hasn’t been fired, anyway,” he intimated, looking at the screwed-up handkerchief.

  He stared again at the pistol, evidently thinking hard.

  “There must have been some damned rum goings-on here last night. I can make neither head nor tail of it.”

  “Well, let’s be getting on with it,” suggested the Colonel, whose temperament inclined to action when action was possible. He wanted to get to the root of the mystery as soon as he could. “Let’s try this room here. We’ve got to begin somewhere.”

  Impatiently he flung open the nearest door, motioning the others to be ready. A gust of heated air blew across his face as he stood on the threshold.

  “Phew! Hubbard’s no fresh-air fiend, evidently. Open the windows, Bolam.”

  Then, as he stepped into the room, they heard his voice change:

  “Good God! What’s this?”

  Almost pushing him aside in their haste, Cyril Norton and the constable came in sight of the thing at which the Colonel was pointing. A low, broad desk stood in the centre of the room, the desk chair having its back to the fire-place. Half in the chair, half sprawling on the desk, they saw a bulky thing, its outlines partly concealed by a green baize cloth which had been clumsily thrown over it. Jutting out from under one side of the cloth, a limp hand lay on the polished surface of the desk.

  Half a dozen strides took the Colonel to the muffled body. Stripping off the cloth, he flung it on the floor beside the chair; and the three invaders gathered around the desk.

  “Hubbard!”

  The Colonel’s exclamation was unnecessary. The blackmailer’s face was concealed, for the head of the corpse was buried in the arms which rested on the desk; but Hubbard’s identity was clear enough. Colonel Sanderstead slowly removed his hat; Cyril and the constable followed his example: and for a few moments there was silence. Cyril Norton was the first to speak.

  “Apoplexy? He was one of these fat-necked beggars; and he must have found last night a strain.”

  The Colonel found something unwelcome in the speculation, made thus in the presence of death. He put down his hat and turned back to examine the body again, without replying. Without seeming to notice his uncle’s attitude, Cyril Norton continued his reflections.

  “Suicide, possibly. Or a weak heart, perhaps. But if it was either of these, then who put that cloth over him? There’s nobody in the house, apparently, I wonder, now . . .”

  He broke off for a moment; then, with a flash of irritation, he added:

  “It beats me!”

  And after a more prolonged meditation he repeated his earlier verdict:

  “There must have been some damned rum goings-on here last night.”

  Colonel Sanderstead had been stooping over the body.

  “I can put a name to one of them, Cyril. Murder! This was how it was done.”

  Cyril Norton went forward and, with the Colonel’s finger to guide him, saw clearly what he had missed in his first glance at the body. Hubbard’s coat had been ruffled by the attitude into which he had fallen; and the folds of the cloth had concealed something which was now plain enough to Cyril. Colonel Sanderstead felt a certain discoverer’s pride as his nephew bent over the corpse. He began to think that possibly he had a distinct turn for detective work.

  “Do you see it, Cyril? It seems a curious sort of wound. There’s very little blood from it, or we’d have seen it right away. Perhaps he bled internally; I believe some wounds do.”

  “Not much blood, certainly,” his nephew concurred, looking up with an expression of bewilderment which seemed to become tinged with something akin to apprehension as he bent down once more to examine the body. The Colonel noticed that flicker of uneasiness, but he had other things to think about.

  “That wound—have a good look at it—seems to me as if it had been made with a stiletto.”

  “Or the large blade of a pen-knife; that would be about the right size and shape,” Cyril Norton commented.

  “Something of the sort,” conceded the Colonel. “Don’t touch the folds of the clothes. We’ll need to get a doctor on to this thing.”

  He sniffed once or twice, as though trying to recognize a perfume.

  “That fellow must have used scent, surely. It’s pretty strong, too. The whole room smells of it; and it comes from him. Hair-oil, perhaps. Do you smell almond-oil?”

  “Yes. He was the sort of fellow who would use that kind of thing.”

  “Bolam! Open all the windows, wide. This place is like an oven.”

  The constable threw open the two big sashes; and a chill draught blew through the room to the open door.

  Suddenly, across the solemnity of the death-chamber, there burst a torrent of vile profanity. It flowed out without a pause, as though some verbal sewer had been flushed. It was directed at no one in particular and seemed merely the liberation of some foul and angry mind at odds with the Universe.

  The Colonel was the first to recover from his surprise.

  “Cover up that parrot,” he jerked to Bolam. The constable, following the Colonel’s gesture, discovered a large gilded cage standing in a recess opposite the table. He stooped down, picked up the baize cloth from the floor and threw it over the cage. The obscene current broke off abruptly; and they heard the parrot moving uneasily on its perch.

  “Nice funeral oration, that. It gave me a bit of a start,” Cyril admitted with a faint smile. Then his face changed, as he saw that the constable’s back was turned. He caught the Colonel’s eye; glanced down at the corpse beside him; and then, with a grave face met the Colonel’s look again. Colonel Sanderstead was by no means dull. He picked up the meaning of the by-play instantly, as if his nephew had put the thing into words. The blackmail; the murder; and—Jimmy Leigh! “What are you going to do about it?” Cyril Norton’s mute question was as plain as print. Now the Colonel understood why his nephew had been worried. He knew, better than the Colonel, the state of Jimmy Leigh’s mind; and perhaps, from the opening of the mystery he had been afraid of finding the very thing they had discovered. He had concealed his anxiety under a guise of bewilderment—a clever touch, that.

  But, on further reflection, the Colonel had to admit that Cyril’s surprise had been real enough; it was not mere acting. Like the Colonel himself, Cyril Norton had been all at sea. His summing-up: “There must have been some damned rum goings-on here,” was a genuine statement. And, as the Colonel was to discover at a later stage, these second thoughts were nearer the truth than his first impressions. His nephew was in reality quite as puzzled as he had appeared.

  Cyril Norton was still gazing intently at his uncle’s face, awaiting the answer to that unspoken question, when Bolam turned round again; and the opportunity had passed. Colonel Sanderstead became suddenly businesslike.

  “We must see if the murderer left any clues behind him. Bolam!”

  “Sir?”

  “Take your note-book and jot down anything I tell you. We’re going to examine the premises, and a record ought to be made at the time.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “We’d better have everything from the start. Put down first of all the time when we reached the house—about ten minutes ago; that will be near enough. Then the finding of that latchkey; the fact that we got no answer when I rang the bell; the 0·22 pistol in the hall. . . . Am I going too fast for you?”

  “I’m taking it down in shorthand, sir.”

  “Good man, Bolam. Give me a
longhand copy when you’ve had time to transcribe it. . . . Next, the fact that the electric light was still burning in the hall.”

  “And in this room, too, sir?”

  Cyril Norton looked up to where the spray of electric lamps glowed palely over the desk. The Colonel caught his look and hurried to offer an explanation before either of the others could supply one.

  “Hubbard must have fallen asleep, lying forward on the desk as he is now. Of course the lights would be on. Then the murderer might have stolen in and knifed him from behind. You don’t imagine that wound would have been inflicted in the dark? Then the murderer must have slipped out and forgotten to switch off the lights. Or he may have left them on deliberately.”

  “That sounds all right,” Cyril Norton acquiesced. “But that looks as if the murderer, whoever he was, had got rattled. Why leave the lights on, burning there all night? Rather apt to attract attention, I’d have thought. Someone might have come in to turn them off, thinking they’d been left on by accident. I think if I’d been in charge of this business I’d have switched them out.”

  “Well, let’s go on,” suggested the Colonel, who was beginning to enjoy the rôle of detective. “Put that down about the lights, Bolam. Now we’ll take the desk as a starting-point.”

  He walked round it, examining the articles on it carefully.

  “Ah! Here’s your letter, Cyril, I think.

  SIR,

  I wish to inform you that to-morrow morning I intend to apply for a warrant for your arrest on a charge of blackmail.

  Yours faithfully,

  CYRIL NORTON.

  You needn’t take that down, Bolam; the document itself’s there if we want it. H’m! You didn’t waste words over him, Cyril.”