Death at Swaythling Court

by J. J. Connington

  “Thank you very much, Colonel. I’m sure Kitty will be very pleased if you take notice of her. If I may say so, sir, she thinks a lot of your opinion.”

  The Colonel was not too dense to see the implied hint.

  “That’s all right, Lonsdale.” He smiled. “I’ll tell her just what I think of you; I’m sure that will please her. But go on with your story.”

  “Of course, sir, when we got things fixed up definitely, it put the Hubbard affair out of my mind for the moment. I’d no thoughts for that then. But after we’d got back to Upper Greenstead and I’d said good night to her, I turned off into the High Spinney on my road home; and somehow the whole business came back to my mind and made me madder than ever. I left her at the shop about ten o’clock; and I walked slowly through the Spinney, looking about to see if there was anyone about; and it was some time before I came out of the wood at the end nearest Swaythling Court. I was that mad over the affair that I made up my mind I’d go right off and have it out with Hubbard then and there. I’d have half-killed him if I’d got my hands on him just then.

  “I cut across the slope and got into the Swaythling grounds at the west end and then I tramped up to the house. The church clock in Fernhurst Parva happened to chime half-past ten as I got over the fence. When I got near the house itself, I saw there was no light burning in it except in the hall, so I’d had my pains for nothing. The beggar was out, that evening. However, to make sure, I trudged up to the front door and rang the bell. Nobody answered. I rang again—kept my finger on it for the best part of a minute, enough to wake the dead, but still no one came. So I left it at that and went away again.”

  “Do you remember it raining that night?” inquired the Colonel

  “Yes, sir. It began to rain a bit just after Kitty went into the shop. I think it cleared up again just about the time I reached the Swaythling Court grounds.”

  “So that you were actually on the premises about half-past ten; and Hubbard was not in the house?”

  “No one answered my ringing, at any rate.”

  “That fits in perfectly with the evidence at the inquest.”

  “Yes, sir. That’s one reason why I didn’t feel there was any need for me to come forward. So far as that went, they had the information from other people. But it wasn’t altogether that that made me keep quiet. You see, sir, I’d have had to explain how I came to be there; and that meant dragging Kitty’s name into it; and perhaps having her put into the box to confirm my story. I wasn’t going to have my girl made a show of if I could help it.”

  “I quite see your point, Lonsdale. I think you were quite right to keep quiet. Your evidence carried the matter no farther anyway.”

  Lonsdale fidgeted again at this comment.

  “But you see, sir, that wasn’t quite the only thing. The rest of the story was so downright impossible that if I’d told it to the coroner he’d have said straight out that I was either drunk or making up a yarn. I can hardly believe it myself, now I come to look back on it. Sometimes I think I must have been dreaming and got mixed up.”

  The Colonel brushed aside Lonsdale’s commentary.

  “Let’s have the facts first, Lonsdale. You can give me your impressions about it afterwards. What happened after you stopped ringing the bell at the Court? That was about half-past ten, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, there or thereabouts, I should think. I didn’t go down the avenue; I just cut straight across into our own grounds and went down past the sixth green to the road at the Bungalow.”

  Colonel Sanderstead’s face betrayed very little; but there was a certain eagerness in his voice which puzzled the keeper.

  “Ah! By the way, Lonsdale, did you by any chance notice a motor in the avenue or near it, about that time?”

  But the keeper’s reply dashed the hopes of the Colonel.

  “No, sir. Certainly there was no car near the house while I was about the place.”

  The Colonel made no comment. Inwardly he was making a note that the mysterious motor must have reached the house after, say, 10.45 p.m.; for the avenue of Swaythling Court was commanded by the links, and if the car had arrived while Lonsdale was crossing the golf-course he would certainly have seen its lights.

  “All right. Go on, Lonsdale.”

  “Well, sir, I crossed the Micheldean Abbas road at the Bungalow and went through the Bungalow gate. Mr. Leigh allows me to go through his garden instead of walking round by the road. It cuts off the best part of a mile for me. So I pushed open the gate and walked up the drive towards the Bungalow door. I usually turn off into the shrubbery just before reaching the front entrance. I don’t like tramping past his front door-steps. It looks like presuming on a favour.”

  The Colonel nodded his approval of this tact.

  “I’d just reached the place where I usually turn off and I’d taken perhaps a couple of steps into the shrubbery, when I heard the Bungalow door open. Quite without thinking, I looked across. You know the Bungalow door, sir? You’ll remember there’s a porch outside it, a fairly roomy thing, so that people can stand at the door and not be seen from outside. I could see the light from the open door and that was all. Then I heard Mr. Leigh’s voice; and that made me pull up in my tracks. He said: ‘Good-night, Hubbard. See you again soon.’ And with that he closed the door.”

  Colonel Sanderstead had some difficulty in maintaining an outward appearance of unconcern. Here was a piece of evidence worth having; an account by a completely unbiased witness of the parting between Jimmy Leigh and Hubbard after that final momentous interview which hitherto had been wrapped in obscurity.

  “By the way, Lonsdale, excuse my interrupting your story, but can you remember anything more about that incident. For instance, could you recall the tone of voice Mr. Leigh used?”

  Colonel Sanderstead was rather proud of that inquiry. To the keeper, it would merely appear that his recollection was being tested; whilst actually the Colonel would extract the crucial information as to whether the two men had parted on bad terms or not.

  Lonsdale paused and reflected for a moment or two before he answered. Quite evidently he thought that the Colonel was applying a memory test.

  “I don’t seem to remember anything particular, Colonel. My recollection is that Mr. Leigh spoke just as you or I might speak in a casual way; just the way I’d say, ‘See you to-morrow,’ to anybody I met in the ordinary way.”

  He paused again and tried to gather something further from his memory:

  “No, sir, I can’t remember anything out of the way. It was the ordinary good-night business. Nothing more was said, if that’s what you mean. I’m quite certain about that.”

  But the Colonel had learned enough already to make him think furiously. Here, on absolutely credible evidence, was the proof that Jimmy Leigh had parted from Hubbard, after that crucial interview, on terms which were not in any way removed from normal. But if that were so, then Jimmy Leigh could hardly have had a hand in Hubbard’s death at all. They hadn’t parted in a passion; therefore they must have come to some arrangement which did not hit Jimmy Leigh too hard. Perhaps Hubbard had climbed down completely and agreed to stop the blackmail. A great wave of relief passed over Colonel Sanderstead’s mind.

  “And what happened after that?” he inquired.

  Lonsdale fidgeted more markedly than before.

  “Well, sir, I hardly expect you to believe the rest; but it’s gospel truth. I stood there under cover of the bushes and all at once it flashed across me that I’d got my chance after all. I’d missed Hubbard at his house; and now he’d dropped clean into my hands—a regular gift o’ Providence, so to speak. I could have it out with him after all. And with that all my rage came back again; and I promised myself he’d get the biggest drubbing any man ever got. So I waited for him to come out. I meant to follow him back into his own avenue, where it would be quiet and there’d be nobody to interfere; and then I was going to take it out of his hide.”

  The keeper paused again, with an artless drama
tic effect.

  “I kept my eye on the porch, waited for him to come out; for I had to let him get ahead of me before I crept out of the shrubbery. I waited for five minutes, I’m sure. Nobody passed me. I was near enough the avenue to have touched a man with a stick if he’d passed down. I don’t think I’d have heard him, perhaps, for there was a wind rustling among the dead leaves. But I’ll take my oath that I saw nobody. So I took it that Hubbard was still sheltering in the porch after Mr. Leigh went in and shut the door. Seeing that he wasn’t coming out, I changed my plans and I tiptoed up to the porch myself. If it came to a noisy scrap, I thought I could trust Mr. Leigh to stand aside once I’d told him the rights of the case.”

  “I expect you were right in that,” the Colonel agreed.

  “So I crept quietly up the avenue, sir, until I came in full view of the porch. I could see every corner of it. And you may believe me or not, Colonel, but it’s the cold truth that there wasn’t a soul there. He’d slipped past me somehow. You could have knocked me down with the tip of your finger, I was so taken aback. I didn’t know what to make of it.”

  Even the mere recollection of his surprise seemed to affect Lonsdale. He looked at the Colonel with eyes in which amazement struggled with something almost akin to fear.

  “I didn’t know what to make of it,” he went on. “Did you ever hear tell of an Invisible Man, Colonel? That’s what Hubbard was that night. I’ve been wondering if it was one of Mr. Leigh’s scientific dodges—he’s a great hand at doing weird things with these instruments of his. Do you think that could have been it, sir? He might have made Hubbard invisible for a bit.”

  “I’d rather try for some simpler explanation first,” the Colonel commented. “Suppose Hubbard had simply opened the front door and gone inside after Mr. Leigh?”

  “It won’t do, sir. Mr. Leigh has a Yale lock on the Bungalow door; and when I got into the porch I tried the door, and it was locked.”

  “Aren’t there any cupboards or lockers in the porch? Hubbard might have spotted you, you know, and concealed himself.”

  “There wasn’t cover enough for a cat in the porch, sir. I had my flash-lamp with me; and I went over every corner.”

  “Well, I’d want very sound evidence that Hubbard did go out of the house then before I swallowed this Invisible Man notion of yours, Lonsdale. The thing’s ridiculous.”

  A certain obstinacy appeared in the keeper’s face.

  “That’s what I thought you would say, sir. And that’s just what kept me from offering my evidence at the inquest. What sort of a figure would I have cut if I’d brought out that story on oath? Nobody’d have believed me, any more than you do yourself But it happened, right enough. And what’s more, I’ve got proof that Hubbard did leave the Bungalow then.”

  Again the Colonel became alert. Here was something else of importance coming out.

  “How can you prove that?”

  Lonsdale answered the question by asking another:

  “How long would it take you to walk from the Bungalow door over to Swaythling Court, sir, taking it just at an ordinary pace?”

  “It’s roughly three-quarters of a mile from door to door, I should think. That’s near enough anyway. Taking it at three miles per hour, that would work out somewhere round about fifteen minutes.”

  “That’s what I make it,” confirmed Lonsdale. “I’ve walked it with a watch in my hand since then; and it came out at thirteen minutes. But that Hubbard was a slug of a man; and he might have taken a couple of minutes longer.”

  His expression became tinged with a certain triumph.

  “Well, sir, just before Hubbard came out of the Bungalow door, the Fernhurst Parva church clock chimed a quarter to eleven. As soon as I’d satisfied myself that Hubbard wasn’t concealed about the premises, I cut off sharp to my own cottage. From the higher ground there you can see right over the Bungalow to Swaythling Court. When I got to my cottage door, the windows of Swaythling Court were all dark; only the hall lights were burning—just as I’d left it. I took out my watch and waited; and I kept my eye on the Court. I might have saved myself the bother with my watch; for almost immediately after the Fernhurst Parva clock chimed again, eleven o’clock, the light flashed up in the study windows of Swaythling Court. And that meant that Hubbard had got home to the house again. He’d taken just the quarter of an hour that you allowed for it. And there in that study you found him dead next morning. Can you get round that, sir?”

  The Colonel idly traced some lines on the road with his stick. Certainly Lonsdale’s evidence seemed neatly hinged together, and what especially struck the Colonel was the fact that only a man with his wits about him would have thought of applying the last check to the business. Most people would have had quite enough when they discovered that Hubbard had vanished. One could not rule Lonsdale out as an incompetent witness. And yet . . . an Invisible Man was a bit of a mouthful for anyone to swallow That sort of thing simply didn’t happen; and that was all about it. But perhaps it was some dodge of Jimmy Leigh’s: a conjuring trick with mirrors or something like that. But Jimmy Leigh had more to think about than aimless conjuring just then.

  Lonsdale was anxiously awaiting the Colonel’s verdict; but Colonel Sanderstead wanted time to think the matter out. At last he took refuge in a non-committal phrase:

  “I must say, Lonsdale, I think you were quite right in not volunteering that evidence of yours. I’m not throwing any doubts on your veracity; but other people might have been less broad-minded. An invisible man takes a lot of swallowing, you know.”

  The keeper was obviously disappointed.

  “It’s gospel truth, sir, whether anybody believes it or not. Do you think I’d be fool enough to make up a cock-and-bull story like that? If it hadn’t been the plain truth, no more and no less, I’d never have spoken to you about it, never.”

  The Colonel suddenly stopped tracing lines with his stick. Hallucination! That would cover the case. And, of course, a man suffering from a hallucination would be absolutely convinced that he was speaking the truth. Most probably the whole yarn originated in some vivid nightmare that the keeper had had after he went to bed. His mind would be full of Hubbard; and no doubt the blackmailer bobbed up in his dreams. He turned to Lonsdale again.

  “If I were you, Lonsdale, I think I’d keep this affair to yourself. You’ve got it off your mind by telling me about it; and I shan’t let it go any farther. And if anything turns up, I’ll be able to say that you didn’t attempt to keep it quiet. But you know what people are; they’d scoff at the whole affair if you told them about it. Much better to keep it between ourselves, I think. And now I must be moving on. I’ll be over at Upper Greenstead soon to look up Kitty. We must see about getting you a better cottage, if we can, or else build something on to your present one; and Kitty may be able to give me some notion of the kind of thing she would like. That’ll do. No thanks. I’m only too glad to do something for a young couple.”

  And with a certain relief, the Colonel escaped under cover of the keeper’s gratitude.

  He was frankly puzzled by this latest addition to the evidence in the Hubbard case. He repeated to himself the word “hallucination”; and he tried to convince himself by these repetitions. But he had known Lonsdale long enough and well enough to doubt whether the keeper was a likely subject for delusions. That possible explanation hardly rang true when one judged it fairly. But then the alternative, the Invisible Man, was even more improbable. Unless . . . unless one accepted the idea that Jimmy Leigh had been up to some new scientific stunt, something even more wonderful than the Lethal Ray itself.

  “Damnation!” complained the Colonel, who seldom swore, “I seem to come up against Jimmy Leigh wherever I turn in this infernal affair. And even if there is an Invisible Man mixed up in it, that doesn’t exclude the possibility that the Lethal Ray was at the bottom of the whole business. I’ve simply got to get at the truth of this thing, or I’ll never feel satisfied.”

  He walked back towards th
e village, switching his stick in irritation.

  “I used to wonder how a plain man would feel if he were set down to solve a mystery, Well, I know now. What’s wrong with this case is that there seem to be far too many clues; and hardly a pair of them point in the same direction. One would think they had all been carefully contrived to lead nowhere in particular. I wonder what Angermere would have made of Lonsdale. That’s another bit of evidence that his theory couldn’t account for anyway. He’s just as far astray as I am myself. Upon my soul, I believe Cyril took the safest course of us all when he admitted straight off that it was beyond him. He’s saved himself a lot of unnecessary worry by keeping clear of the affair. I wish I’d never heard about it. It’s getting on my nerves.”

  But before his walk was finished, Colonel Sanderstead was destined to have yet another complication of the case thrust upon his notice. As he turned into the main street, the Vicar almost ran into him; and it was evident that Flitterwick was suffering from a bad attack of suppressed news.

  “Oh, good morning, Colonel. Delighted to meet you. The weather is exceptionally fine for this period of the year, is it not? Just the very morning for a pleasant walk, aequo animo, if I may put it so, with a mind at ease.”

  “Very pleasant, very pleasant,” said the Colonel, shortly.

  “A terrible business, this Hubbard case. Animus meminisse horret, as Virgil has it; my soul shakes with horror when I recall it.”

  “Unpleasant business. I shouldn’t dwell on it,” advised the Colonel, unsympathetically.

  “That reminds me,” Flitterwick went on, coming to his real news, “there is a most surprising rumour in the village.”

  “Indeed?” Colonel Sanderstead’s voice was very dry; and anyone with a thinner skin than Flitterwick would have left his news untold. The Vicar, however, was by no means dashed.

  “It appears, Colonel, that young Leigh’s sudden departure has been explained at last.”