The Crowned Skull

by Fergus Hume

  ‘He is not; you have no right to say that.’

  ‘He certainly fled from St. Ewalds.’

  ‘And why: because a set of uneducated quarry men, without knowing the truth, were prepared to take the law into their own hands. They ought to be punished.’

  ‘They will be, Miss Trevick. There is every chance that the man called Anak will be arrested. He was the ringleader.’

  ‘Do you know where Anak is?’ asked Forde quickly.

  ‘Usually he is at the quarries. He lives with his mother, a reputed witch, amongst the moors. Anak’s true name is Hugh Carney, and he is called Anak from the fact that he is six feet four high. However, I have come here to ask, not to answer, questions. Sir Hannibal—’

  ‘He is not here,’ said Dericka sharply; ‘do you doubt my word?’

  ‘My dear girl,’ said Forde in a low voice, as he saw the detective bite his lip with annoyance, ‘this is not the way to speak to a man who is merely doing his duty. We know that your father is not here, so to convince him let us allow Mr. Arkle to search the house.’

  ‘But the insult, Oswald.’

  ‘My dear, things have come to a pass where insults do not matter.’

  Dericka thought for a moment. Then her common sense came to her aid and she saw that she had been unjust to the quiet little man, who have behaved very well considering how objectionable was his errand.

  ‘You can search the house, Mr. Arkle,’ she said abruptly.

  The detective looked hard at her. ‘I don’t think it will be necessary, Miss Trevick,’ said he politely; ‘I’ll take your word for it. But if Sir Hannibal does communicate with you it will be wise that you should advise him to surrender.’

  ‘That will be my business,’ said Forde determinedly; ‘I am quite sure that what you say is common sense, Mr. Arkle.’

  Arkle bowed and took his hat to go.

  Dericka stopped him. ‘One moment, sir,’ she said quickly; ‘how did you know that my father was at Miss Quinton’s in Kensington?’

  ‘We learned that he had gone there with you from the Guelph Hotel, Miss. Sir Hannibal left his address.’

  ‘But why did you go to the Guelph Hotel?’

  Arkle shrugged his shoulders. ‘The men who came from St. Ewalds, Miss, informed me that Sir Hannibal usually stopped there when in town.’

  ‘I understand. Well, Mr. Arkle, I can promise you that should my father write to me I shall certainly advise him to give himself up. You can take it from me that he is perfectly innocent. You must look in another direction for the assassin of Mr. Bowring.’

  Arkle glanced at the young lady sharply.

  ‘Perhaps, Miss, you can tell me in which direction to look?’ said he in silky tones.

  ‘No, I cannot. But my father was at the fete all the time. Perhaps, Mr. Arkle, you will explain on what grounds you arrest him?’

  ‘Certainly, Miss. I am not exceeding my duty in telling you. Sir Hannibal and Mr. Bowring were not on good terms. At the fete Mr. Bowring told Sir Hannibal that he had made a will leaving the money to him. Sir Hannibal certainly was missing from the fete, and rumour says that he went on a motor-bicycle to heave the mass of granite on to the road. As that failed to kill Mr. Bowring it was then that Sir Hannibal shot him, and afterwards regained this house by means of the motor-bicycle. Mr. Polwin can state that he met Sir Hannibal on his bicycle, and Hugh Carney—that is, Anak—can state that he saw Sir Hannibal in the vicinity of the quarries on the day and about the time the murder took place.’

  Arkle ceased, and, looking at Dericka, waited to hear what comment she would make on his very plain statement.

  She held her tongue, however, and as Forde also did not seem inclined to speak, the detective withdrew after a keen glance at both of them. When the front door closed, and he was seen walking briskly down the avenue, Dericka turned to her lover.

  ‘What do you think of all this?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ll tell you that after I have seen Anak,’ replied Oswald; ‘I am going to drive out to the quarries now.’

  ‘One moment. Why should papa run away?’

  ‘I don’t believe that he has. He will turn up here, and then I’ll persuade him to surrender.’

  Dericka mused for a few moments, while Forde held the handle of the door preparing to depart.

  ‘Sophia is a spiteful woman,’ she said abruptly.

  ‘Are you talking of Miss Warry?’

  ‘Of course. She is trying to injure papa because—it sounds very ridiculous, of course—but the fact is Sophia wanted papa to marry her. Yes, you may laugh, but it is the truth. And because he would have nothing to do with her she has made up this story of the quarrel in the library to get him into trouble.’

  ‘There may be truth in the story,’ said Forde meaningly; ‘after all, Dericka, you told me yourself that Bowring hinted your father had threatened him with death.’

  Dericka changed colour. ‘Hold your tongue about that, Oswald.’

  ‘Certainly. But what do you think of the threat?’

  Dericka looked contemptuous. ‘It was only a sample of papa’s wild talk when he is angry. I expect Mr. Bowring and papa really did have a quarrel, and both of them said more than they intended to say. It is lucky Sophia did not overhear everything papa said in an unguarded moment and when he was not responsible for his speech.’

  ‘Do you think she really did miss anything?’ asked Forde doubtfully; ‘she struck me as a woman who would keep a lot back until such time as she could make a dramatic announcement, the same as she did at the inquest, about her prophecy.’

  ‘Sophia is really deaf,’ replied Miss Trevick thoughtfully, ‘and if papa and his friend were near the window she certainly would not hear much unless her ears were sharp. The screen, behind which she was hidden, is at the other end of the room. No, Oswald, if she could have said anything harmful to papa she would have let it out to you at that conversation.’

  ‘Yet she left the room before I could question her.’

  ‘I’ll question her,’ said Dericka decisively. ‘I’ll go this very afternoon and ask her why she is maligning papa.’

  ‘You say that you know the reason?’

  ‘Sophia won’t give that reason.’

  ‘Very good. I’ll leave you to deal with the lady, and I’ll go out to see Mrs. Carney and her gigantic son.’

  This being arranged, Forde left the house, and Dericka returned to report progress to Miss Lavinia. The young barrister procured a trap at the ‘King’s Arms’, and after a light luncheon took his way to the quarries, along the very road on which the murder had taken place.

  He was anxious to interview Anak and to learn why the man was so persistent in making trouble. Trevick was not a man to have enemies, as he was good-natured and indolent. Yet Anak went out of his way to implicate the baronet in a crime of which he was assuredly innocent; and more, he had led the quarrymen to wreck the Dower House. Such an attack was more likely to occur in Russia than in a quiet Cornish watering-place; yet the assault had been made, and that it had not succeeded was owing to the cleverness of Anne Stretton. And at this point of his meditations Forde remembered that he had also to interview the adventuress, as Dericka contemptuously called her, if only to learn if she could in any way exonerate Sir Hannibal from complicity in the murder.

  On this bright afternoon, under a clear blue sky radiant with sunshine, the moors looked wonderfully beautiful. They ascended on one side of the winding road, and fell away on the other towards the steep cliffs, which breasted the placid ocean. The air was crisp and keen, and Forde drew in long breaths as the trap spun along gaily behind the smart little pony.

  Passing over the scene of the murder, he looked up to see the mutilation of the bank whence the mass of granite had fallen, and looked also down the slope where the scattered fragments revealed how it had been blasted by dynamite so as not to impede the traffic.

  Then round the corner of the next bend he came unexpectedly upon Anak. There was no mistaking t
he giant, for there could not be another such huge creature in the district.

  ‘Isn’t that Hugh Carney?’ Forde asked the driver.

  ‘Yes, sir; Anak, we calls him.’

  ‘You can stop here,’ and Forde leaped from the trap to walk forward and confront the big man. Anak, who was walking towards the ragged rent in the high bank which led to the quarries, turned his head at the sound of approaching footsteps and waited when he saw Forde make a signal that he should stop. The man, bulky, brawny and animal, towered above the slim barrister, although Forde was not a short man by any means. He had the immovable face of an ox, heavy, bovine, and a trifle sullen. In his clothes, rusty with the grime of the quarries, with a shock of red hair, and a tangled, untrimmed beard of the same, Anak looked like one of those famous giants of Cornish lore whom Jack killed.

  ‘You are Hugh Carney?’ asked the young man briskly.

  ‘I am Anak,’ replied the giant, without much civility.

  ‘So I understand, and I think that the name fits you very well. I am Mr. Forde, and I am acting on behalf of Sir Hannibal Trevick.’

  At the sound of the name Anak scowled and clenched his mighty fist in a savage manner.

  ‘He’d better keep out of my way,’ he growled.

  ‘Indeed,’ answered Forde lightly; ‘and why?’

  ‘I’ve got my own reasons.’

  ‘Perhaps you’ll tell them to me?’

  ‘Why should I?’ demanded Anak, still growling.

  ‘My friend, you are in danger of arrest for having led that mob of men to the Dower House. I can help you in this matter if you will help me.’

  ‘Help you in what?’ grumbled Anak, sulkily.

  ‘To clear the character of Sir Hannibal.’

  ‘I’m hanged if I do.’

  ‘You’ll be imprisoned if you don’t,’ said Forde sharply. ‘Come, now, you must be reasonable. Do you want to be arrested?’

  ‘I’d like to see the man who would arrest me,’ and Anak swung his arms fiercely.

  The barrister looked at the fine animal critically.

  ‘You have been to school, I should say?’ he remarked, irrelevantly.

  ‘What if I have?’ growled Anak on the defensive.

  ‘Simply this. You have had some education, as I notice that you speak better than most of your class round about these parts. You should therefore know that the law is not to be defied by brute strength, which is all the strength you possess, my friend. All your thews can do nothing against a couple of policemen.’

  ‘I’d take a dozen.’

  ‘I am quite sure the dozen would be forthcoming,’ said Forde dryly, ‘and in any case you would have to go to gaol. I can save you from this if you answer me a few questions.’

  These arguments appeared to have some weight with the big man, and he kicked a stone out of his way as he replied: ‘What do you want me to say—sir?’ He added the term of respect grudgingly.

  ‘Why did you lead those quarrymen to the Dower House?’

  ‘Because Sir Hannibal killed Mr. Bowring. He was a good master, was Mr. Bowring, and gave good wages. No wonder we’re angry at him having been done to death.’

  ‘But not by Sir Hannibal.’

  ‘Yes he was; I know.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because I saw Sir Hannibal on the moors near here at the time the rock was heaved over.’

  ‘Come, now, you’re not going to persuade me that so delicate a man and so old a man as Sir Hannibal Trevick threw down such a mass of granite?’

  ‘He might have asked one of the quarrymen to help him,’ asserted Anak savagely, ‘and if I find that man I’ll split his skull.’

  ‘What an amiable individual you are, Mr. Carney,’ bantered Forde, and although the man looked dangerous at a tone which he could not understand he still continued in the same light way. ‘I wonder you didn’t split Sir Hannibal’s skull when you saw him hereabout.’

  ‘I lost him in the mist,’ said Anak sulkily.

  ‘There was no mist on the day of the murder.’

  ‘Oh, yes, there was. Not on the road, perhaps, but higher up on the moors. It came down suddenly, as mists do in these parts, and while I was going home I saw Sir Hannibal quite plainly running up from the place where the murder was done. I followed, as I always hated him, but he got away, and although I followed him right over the hill to the other road I couldn’t catch him. But I heard the noise of his motor-horn,’ ended Anak triumphantly.

  This explanation seemed to prove that the baronet really was guilty, and yet Anak’s tale contradicted that of Polwin’s. What if Polwin had been the man seen by that giant? But that was impossible, as Sir Hannibal was tall, and Polwin short. One could never be mistaken for the other. Forde was puzzled, so did not press the question. In place of it he asked another.

  ‘Why do you hate Sir Hannibal?’ he asked.

  Anak reflected for a moment, then strode forward.

  ‘Come on,’ said he, throwing a gloomy look over his shoulder, ‘I’ll show you the reason.’

  Rather perplexed, Forde climbed up the hill with the big quarryman, and after fifteen minutes’ hard work reached a small hut built under the lee of a mighty cromlech. Anak stalked forward and pushed open the door abruptly. ‘Mother!’ he called out harshly.

  But no aged woman appeared. The door was filled a moment later by the graceful form of Miss Anne Stretton.

  Chapter XII News

  Anak appeared as much taken aback as Forde at the unexpected sight of the woman who had foiled the attack on the Dower House. But for one moment did he look at her beautiful face, then rushed forward with dilated nostrils and upraised fist.

  ‘You let him get away,’ he growled, remembering the occasion when she had aided Sir Hannibal to escape.

  Forde caught the giant back, and for his pains Anak turned on him in mighty wrath. But the young barrister, although by no means the equal in strength of this Goliath, yet knew something of which Anak was ignorant: that is, Forde had taken lessons in ju-jitsu. Before Anak, vain of his muscles, knew what had happened he was lying on his back, tripped up skilfully in the most unexpected manner. When he sat up again his face of stupid wonder was something to behold.

  Forde burst out laughing, as did Anne Stretton, and with a savage growl Anak rose to renew the attack. Swinging his mighty arms, he lunged forward with all his strength. Forde stood still until the big man was nearly on top of him then dropped on his back, shot up a foot, and swung Anak, as on a pivot, over his head to crash amongst the wet herbage. It was all so lightly and neatly done that Anne, who admired physical dexterity, clapped her hands.

  Forde laughed, and went towards the prostrate giant. His head had struck against a stone and he was stunned for the moment. The barrister cast a casual glance at him, and seeing that he would recover soon, strolled back to Anne.

  ‘That’s all right,’ he said easily; ‘in ten minutes he’ll be sensible again, Miss Stretton.’

  ‘You haven’t killed him, Mr. Forde?’

  ‘I have stunned him; he’ll be right again soon.’

  ‘Won’t you do something for him?’ asked Anne, marvelling at the coolness of this slight young gentleman.

  ‘Certainly not. He’ll only make trouble when he recovers his senses, and I wish to talk with you and with Mrs. Carney.’

  Before Anne could express her sentiments regarding this calm behaviour—which, by the way, she secretly admired—she was pushed aside and a lean, blear-eyed old crone tottered forth on crutches. She was dressed in faded rags of once brilliant garments, and her white hair flew in wisps about her head, unrestrained in any way. A pair of brilliant black eyes showed that she had all her wits about her, and that her spirit was keen if her figure was a wreck. Her face was a mass of wrinkles, and she had a true nutcracker chin. Mrs. Carney certainly would have been burnt in the middle ages as a witch of the worst.

  Seeing the recumbent form of her big son, she tottered forward with wrath in her eyes, and
looked spitefully at Forde. Could she have blighted him at that moment she certainly would have done so. And yet in her regard there was something of fear that so slim a young man should have overcome such a giant as her son. It was David and Goliath over again.

  ‘I heard all,’ said Mrs. Carney, and Forde noted that she spoke in quite a refined way. ‘What do you mean by killing my son?’