The Mystery at Stowe

by Vernon Loder

  ‘He seemed interested in it. I think he was going to get it from Jorkins.’

  ‘But you left before that?’

  ‘Oh yes. But I saw the air-gun before the inspector came. It was quite rusty.’

  ‘It would be, even if he did use it,’ said Carton, cryptically to her mind. ‘That is not hard to do. But it seems to be a .22 bore, and that is the calibre I thought it might be.’

  ‘If he had one.’

  ‘Quite. You see he had. However, I can leave that part of the business in Warren’s hands. Do sit down, and rest. It was jolly good of you to go for me, and you have done all I wanted.’

  ‘I must go in,’ she said, smiling, and shaking her head. ‘But I am glad I was able to help.’

  Carton thanked her again, as she turned away to go into the house, and then he reflected on something else.

  ‘Now I think of it, that cupboard had a key,’ he said to himself. ‘I had better have a look at that.’

  CHAPTER XXIII

  A BIT OF FLUFF

  WHEN Carton went privately to the cupboard under the stairs, it was apparent that he wanted to do something more than look at the key to it. He turned the key in the lock, put it in his pocket, and hurried up to his bedroom.

  ‘They can get another ladder, if they want one,’ he said under his breath. ‘I wish I could have a look at the key of Mrs Tollard’s bedroom next.’

  But here his reflections were broken into by a knock at the door, and a voice that informed him Superintendent Fisher was below, and wished to speak with him. He hurried down at once, heard that Fisher had been shown into the library, and joined him there immediately.

  ‘Congratulations, sir,’ said the superintendent softly. ‘It is really a most important point you have brought out about the air-gun, and does you credit.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jim Carton, pleased to find that the fish had bitten. ‘I thought it might be.’

  Fisher beamed. ‘Of course, it is too early to say what may be the result of our investigations, but I have sent Warren down to get the air-gun, if there is one—’

  ‘There is,’ said Carton, smiling. ‘Mrs Gailey wanted shooting lessons, so I suggested an air-gun, and sent her to Jorkins. She has just come back. It is a .22 bore, and rusty.’

  Fisher frowned, then relaxed. ‘You seem to keep busy on your own account, sir! Anyway, you guessed right, if the lady has seen the weapon. I dare say Warren has gone back with it to Elterham.’

  Carton did not dwell on its rustiness. He wanted time: ‘You remember what Miss Gurdon said about a bit of fluff, of silk-cotton, that went on the butt of those darts to make the bore of the blow-pipe air-tight? That is what gave me the idea. The impulsion with the blow-pipe is of the same nature; compressed air. But a gun would send a dart with greater velocity, with much greater accuracy, and could be used by a native of this country to far better purpose.’

  ‘That’s true. I saw what you meant the moment we got your message. The only difficulty will be to prove what motive Jorkins could have. We will put a man on to watch him, and make enquiries to see if he has been spending money.’

  ‘If there is anything in it, it was a bribe, of course.’

  Fisher nodded absently. ‘For the present this does seem to clear Miss Gurdon. She wasn’t well-to-do, or she wouldn’t have had to go to Tollard for money for an expedition. But I may tell you, Mr Carton, that I had half a mind yesterday to get a warrant for her.’

  Jim Carton breathed relief, though he made no comment on this last remark. Fisher went on, after a pause.

  ‘So far we have been hampered in our theory of an outside assailant by Jorkins’s evidence. He was out there, he said he saw no one. Naturally, if he did it, that is what he would say. Undoubtedly he is colour-blind, but his talk of a woman in red looks like a plan after all. To clear himself, he would have to pretend that someone, other than Mrs Tollard, was in the room.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Jim, who, in spite of his later find, was unable to decide definitely that Jorkins was outside the radius of suspicion.

  Fisher looked down. ‘So I think we’ll hold up the matter of getting a warrant, for a day or two, and concentrate on this. If Jorkins did it, he may have been concealed in the shrubbery. If he used an air-gun, as you say, he would have that bit of fluff on it to fill the bore. Even bits of fluff don’t vanish, though they can get blown about in winds.’

  ‘I should say that the compression between the expanding air in the breech, and the back of the dart in front, and also the rapid passage of the missile through the barrel, would tend to harden and solidify the fluff of silk-cotton.’

  ‘That’s true, sir. A wad in a gun does get like that between powder and shot charge when a gun is fired. It might make it into a softish pellet; just as paper gets, when you crumple it up in your fingers.’

  ‘I think so.’

  Fisher pondered the matter with growing excitement. ‘It was Warren who looked over that bit of ground immediately between the shrubbery and the window. But I expect he was looking for a white fluff, not anything harder or smaller. An intensive search over an area of a hundred square yards or more ought to bring us on the thing. But it will have to be really thorough.’

  ‘Couldn’t you put several men on it?’

  ‘I’ll give instructions when I get back. I am sorry now I didn’t tell Warren to bring the gun up to me here. But there is the lady you speak of, Mrs Gailey.’

  ‘Yes, she saw it. She spoke to Jorkins, and brought me some of the slugs.’ He put his hand in his pocket, and passed the little missiles to Fisher. ‘Shall I go to fetch her?’

  ‘If you would, sir,’ said Fisher.

  Carton soon found Mrs Gailey, and told her what was wanted. ‘Don’t make a secret of anything,’ he said. ‘You can tell him all you know, for I said I had sent you.’

  ‘All right,’ she said, with some trepidation however. ‘I’ll come.’

  Fisher received her courteously. ‘Mr Carton tells me you have seen Jorkins and his air-gun, Mrs Gailey. I hear it was rusty.’

  ‘Oh, it was. I had it in my hand.’

  ‘Did he say why it was rusty? Keepers as a rule are very careful about fire-arms of any kind.’

  ‘He said he couldn’t shoot well with it, that Mr Barley bought it for him, but he preferred his keeper’s gun.’

  ‘Seems an odd excuse. In ordinary circumstances, I should say a keeper who had a rusty gun was one who wanted people to see it was rusty! I have been in their places before now, and I noticed that even old fire-arms, of a kind unused nowadays, were kept clean and bright, even if they only hung on the wall.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about that.’

  ‘You couldn’t, madam. But the rust in itself need not worry us, unless it is so extensive and deep as to pit the barrel, or lock. I think, Mr Carton, that a close examination of the gun when taken to pieces, or of the rifling in the barrel, might show a fibre of the silk-cotton stuff.’

  Netta listened eagerly. Here she was not even a messenger now, but a member of a crime conference, listening to the superintendent’s views!

  Carton shook his head. ‘If the gun was used—which is all that concerns us—but is now rusty, it was probably left in water for some time. In that case, the silk-cotton fibres might be washed out.’

  ‘Possible. But the expert will see to that. I think we had better send it to the makers in Birmingham.’

  Jim Carton agreed. ‘Well, we have had some wonderful summer days lately, but you never can tell when the weather may not change. A shower of rain, or a high wind, may wash out any traces.’

  ‘I will telephone from here,’ Fisher decided. ‘I’ll have three men over at once to search the ground.’

  ‘You don’t want me in the meantime?’

  ‘No, sir, nor this lady. I have to thank you both for your help. I shouldn’t be surprised if this doesn’t put us on the right track.’

  ‘I hope it will,’ said Carton, and withdrew with Mrs Gailey.


  ‘I think you’re wonderful,’ she said naïvely, when they were in the hall. ‘The superintendent actually consulted you.’

  ‘Actually,’ he agreed, grinning a little. ‘But don’t make any mistake, Mrs Gailey. Fisher is no fool. I have had a bit of luck that did not come his way. On the other hand, he is careful and thorough.’

  ‘Then you don’t think the police are as stupid as some people make out?

  ‘No, I don’t. I think they’re a very high average lot, even if they don’t always work miracles.’

  He left her at the foot of the stairs, and went back to his bedroom. He was thinking of Tollard, and swearing mildly at the author of the new regulations.

  Here he was, the matter sufficiently urgent (if the case against Jorkins broke down), and there was Mrs Tollard’s room that positively called for a more intensive search than even the garden below the window. That day he had seen it with Barley was not enough. He had not known then what he knew, or imagined he knew, now.

  But Barley had given his promise, and would stick to it. He could not in honour ask the man to break it.

  It might have been a sophistical reflection, but he did reflect now that, while he had heard Barley say that no one was to go into the room, he had not himself promised to keep out of it.

  To get into it, however, was the problem. To be found there would look very ugly, and might result in his being turned out by his host. But he would have chanced that if he could have been certain of making an easy entry. The windows had been closed since the room was locked, and he could not climb up that way.

  ‘The worst of it is,’ he murmured, ‘that I could do no good by night; the only safe time otherwise. I want all the light I can get.’

  Mr Barley had locked the room himself, so, presumably, he was now in possession of the key. He might keep his keys in some place together. It would be dangerous to touch them.

  Otherwise, he did not think it would be wrong. His motive was sound. Though he appeared cheerful enough, he was really more than anxious about Elaine. The idea that she might be arrested and charged with the crime was beastly, but it was a decided possibility. Suppose Jorkins’s story proved true, and the rust on the air-gun was sufficiently deep-seated to prove its long standing, then his theory went by the board, and Fisher would be back on the old trail with a sharper eye for Elaine than ever before.

  ‘He’ll nab her, if I’m not careful,’ he said to himself. ‘I wonder if she is keeping anything back? Could I frighten her into letting it out? But, on the other hand, what could she know?’

  Of course, up to the last moment, he should call in the police, and give them details of his latest discovery. But that had its dangers. A twist to the evidence, and what he had noted might seem as convincing evidence against Elaine as anyone else. It all depended on the way one looked at it.

  At lunch Elaine appeared. It was the first time he had seen her since breakfast, and it appeared that she had driven down to the station with Tollard, afterwards visiting the village, and indulging in a short walk. Fisher was still in the house somewhere, but he had not called for her.

  ‘I shall be glad when this melancholy business is over,’ said Mr Barley. ‘It is over, in a sense, but the thought of the funeral today brings it back. I wonder now if I ought to have gone.’

  Elaine shook her head. ‘He did not wish anyone to go from here,’ she remarked quietly. ‘But he was full of your kindness, Mr Barley, and most grateful to you.’

  ‘Nothing! Nothing at all!’ said old Barley, flushing.

  Mrs Minever looked at Elaine. ‘Do you know the policeman is here again?’

  ‘It’s Superintendent Fisher,’ said Mrs Gailey, ‘and he is going to have some men back to search the garden.’

  ‘Is this true?’ asked Barley, looking at Carton.

  ‘So he says, sir. It appears he thinks he may find a clue there. It wasn’t thoroughly done last time, but now he is going to comb it out to the last inch.’

  ‘I don’t see that he need look for the criminal out there,’ muttered the old lady.

  ‘He must look for him everywhere,’ said Barley. ‘You ought to know that, Jane.’

  She sniffed sceptically, and went on with her lunch.

  Jim Carton was sitting next to Elaine, and now turned to speak to her. ‘Are you too tired with your morning’s excursion to give me a look-in this afternoon?’ he asked softly.

  She smiled. ‘In what way, Jim?’

  ‘Say a walk. I was prophesying to Fisher a possible change in the weather, and it is a pity to mug about in the house on a beautiful day like this. Where’s a good place to go, Mr Barley?’

  ‘For a walk? Well, you can’t beat the road to Kirkley—at least that’s my opinion. You turn left after you leave the lodge, go past the beech avenue on Sir David’s estate, and strike a lane. It rises all the time till you get to the top of Wale Hill, and the view is splendid.’

  ‘Ortho Haine took me once in his car,’ said Mrs Gailey. ‘It really is lovely.’

  ‘All right,’ said Elaine composedly. ‘That will do. Ought we to tea out, or can we do it, and come back for tea here?’

  ‘That depends,’ said Mr Barley, ‘on how fast you go.’

  For the first time since the tragedy he almost achieved archness. Mrs Gailey laughed, and even Elaine smiled.

  Jim Carton was, curiously enough, the most embarrassed person there, but he managed to turn it off by saying that an explorer like Elaine ought to be able to put up a walking record.

  ‘I’ll be ready any time after lunch,’ he added.

  ‘At two,’ said Elaine. ‘I have one or two things to do first.’

  He nodded acquiescence.

  But he felt nervous and disturbed in his mind when he stood in the porch later, waiting for Elaine to come out. How would she take it? Would she resent his meddling, forgetting how he felt about her? Would she refuse to take the menace seriously, and so hamper him at the last when there was most need for haste?

  He made up his mind that it would be better to tell her frankly what Fisher had hinted to him—that, if the case against Jorkins fell through, she might be arrested on that most serious charge at any minute. Fisher would have Mrs Gailey and Nelly Sayers on the gridiron again, and this time he would not mince matters. He felt sure that neither of those young women would stand a searching examination, pushed to conclusions.

  ‘I won’t let Elaine put me off this time,’ he said to himself, as he heard her step in the hall.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  ELAINE IS STUBBORN

  JIM CARTON managed to sustain a conversation that was chiefly confined to banalities as they went down the drive, and during their walk to the lane leading to Wale Hill. His nervousness waned a little when he discovered that Elaine was herself not as composed as usual.

  ‘This is more like old times,’ he ventured, as they turned into the leafy lane, and found themselves shut in on either side by hedges that were colourful with the blossoms of the wild rose. ‘I wish we could get back to them, and cut out the last few weeks, don’t you?’

  She looked sidewise at him. ‘Look here, Jim,’ she said seriously. ‘I have a feeling that you didn’t get me out here to talk of old times.’

  ‘You’re quite right.’

  ‘I felt it. But is it worth while? Are you going over what you said before?’

  He frowned. ‘Elaine, I wonder if you know what I think about you at all? Do you think I don’t care what happens to you?’

  ‘I’m sure you do, Jim,’ she replied warmly. ‘I know you do. It isn’t that. But what could happen to me? I think you exaggerate. I know it is because you do care, but just that makes you see little events out of proportion.’

  ‘That is how I feel about you,’ he returned bluntly. ‘You are quick to see most things, but not this. I know you are in a most dangerous position, and I want to help. But I can’t help, so long as you refuse to confide in me.’

  ‘I have,’ she said earnestly. ‘As much as I can confi
de.’

  ‘As much? What does that mean?’

  ‘Well, what can I say?’

  He shrugged. ‘You may think I have Ned Tollard on the brain. Perhaps I have. But I would bet a good deal that he asked you not to talk about him and his wife.’

  ‘And if he did, Jim, can you blame him?’

  ‘I’m not allotting blame. But all these things ought to go by the board, when it is a matter of life and death.’

  ‘No doubt, but I can’t see it like that. The superintendent is sending men to search the garden again. That means he thinks he has a new clue, and if so it must refer to someone outside.’

  ‘He has a clue. I gave it to him.’

  She started. ‘Did you? May I know?’

  He told her briefly of Jorkins and the air-gun, and her face hardened as she listened. ‘But that is unthinkable, Jim. You can only implicate Jorkins by supposing he was bribed by Ned.’

  He stared down at the ground irritably. ‘Well, if I do? But I had another motive. That was to delay Fisher for a day or two while I try another line. Even if Jorkins is not guilty, I have gained a day or two.’

  Surprise was now visible on her face, and in her eyes. ‘My dear boy, what do you mean? Why should you try to hold up the police in their work?’

  He stopped in his walk, and laid a hand on her arm.

  ‘Because I heard from Fisher today, what I suspected before, that he was on the point of getting a warrant for your arrest, Elaine! He admitted, too, today that, if Jorkins proved a wash-out, he would carry out his first plan.’

  She turned white, and bit her lip. He saw that this was a blow over the heart, and watched her anxiously, though he did not move closer to her.

  After a few moments, her colour returned, her mouth was firm. She pulled herself up, and answered in a clear voice that did not tremble.

  ‘So that’s it. You are very good, Jim. I understand you better now, and I understand too why you have been so anxious.’

  ‘Or officious, as Tollard would say,’ he replied gruffly, touched by the change in her tone. ‘You see how it is now. Innocent as you are, a jury might not see it. Mrs Gailey and Miss Sayers were bad witnesses for our side, and I imagine they will give the impression that Margery Tollard was jealous of you, if Fisher gets them in the witness-box.’