The Incredible Crime

by Lois Austen-Leigh

  At this point of her meditations she got into her bath. The usual sound of the wind was not coming from the bath waste, but she could hear the flap of water against the wall of the house, as she rolled over comfortably at full length in the bath. Then there came another sound; Miss Pinsent suddenly sat upright with a look of intent consternation; she put her ear to the waste—yes, there it was again. It was an unmistakable whistle, very soft and very tuneful. The whistler stopped, and then after a little pause began again, for all the world as if he was waiting for someone. Then the whistling stopped, and though she listened, she could not hear a voice at all, only some muffled sounds.

  She sat for a moment considering; to the best of her knowledge the waste from that bath must go down to the water of the creek under the house, therefore…she leapt hastily from her bath, wrapped her huge towel round her, got into her dressing-gown, and crept back into her bedroom without turning on the lights. She felt her way to one of the windows, and very slowly and quietly opened it, and put her head cautiously out. It was quite thick outside, and not possible to see more than five or six yards, and then only dimly, and Prudence drew her dressing-gown closer round her and waited. The window she was looking out of was immediately over the arch where the creek went under the house.

  There wasn’t a sound to be heard here, not even the sound of flapping water. After a short time, a dark point emerged from underneath her; she dimly discerned that it was the bow of a boat. She drew her head in a bit, only allowing enough to appear just to enable her to see over the sill. A man’s figure was standing up in the middle of the boat, pushing it along very quietly by reaching against the sides of the house; and what looked like another figure was in the boat with him. Prudence could only see that it was a man in an overcoat and slouch hat; it was too foggy to see more, and she thought it better to withdraw her head as soon as he appeared. Evidently the sound of flapping water that had come up through the bath waste was the water pushed by the passage of the boat in the tunnel under the house; once outside it had made no sound at all.

  Prudence, though all agog with curiosity, didn’t venture to look out again, in case the man in the boat should look up.

  She went back to the bath-room, dried herself and put on some more clothes, slowly and thoughtfully, and then went along the passage to Mary’s bedroom. The opening of the door woke the old servant up, and Prudence sat down and told her all she had seen.

  “Fancy that!” said Mary; “just fancy that! I’ve always noticed how the wind blows up them wastes, blows dirt up, too, sometimes, just when I’ve cleaned the bath, but I’ve never thought to hear things down ’em.”

  Then as she got out of bed and put on an old dressing-gown: “Just come with me now, Miss Prudence; there’s something I’ve had in my mind to show you.” And she led Prudence back to her own bedroom.

  “You wait here a moment, miss. I’ll be back.”

  Prudence sat down by the fire, puzzled and worried. In a short time Mary was back again with a screwdriver in her hand.

  “It was some years ago, miss, when this room was repapered. I was giving it a good turn-out, and one of the window seats got loose, and I pulled it right off; and underneath—it fair took my breath away—there’s a large hole straight down to the cellars.”

  As she spoke, she went to one of the window-seats set in the thickness of the wall, threw off the cushion, and started to unscrew the wooden seat beneath.

  “I said nothing about it—it was when his lordship was away. I just screwed it down myself, and don’t rightly know why I never spoke of it to his lordship; but I never have, and I don’t even know whether he knows of it.”

  By this time she had got the screws out, and lifting the wooden seat, displayed a fairly wide oubliette up which came the damp smell of the vaults.

  Prudence was speechless with interest and astonishment. She had a small electric bulb which she switched on, and held down the pipe or funnel.

  “It’s all stone,” she said, “and look, Mary, at those dark places. I believe they are dents in the stone that would enable someone to climb up or down.”

  Mary shuddered. “Shut it up, miss. I don’t like it,” she said.

  The two women set to and put the screws back and screwed them tight down, and then they sat down to consider the situation.

  “Mind you,” said Prudence, “we don’t know for certain that whoever was in that boat to-night was doing anything wrong.”

  “Ho, don’t we?” said Mary. “Then why does ’e do it at night, and just the night his lordship is out?”

  “Yes, of course, it looks bad,” conceded Prudence.

  “It looks bad, and it is bad, miss,” said Mary firmly, and then after a pause, “I was wondering when I could be certain of a quiet time to show you that place, miss, without having one of those girls comin’ into the room, and now I’ve done it.”

  “You get back to bed, and I will think all this over.” Prudence put some more coals on the fire, and made a good blaze, which made the room look cheerful and bright, and then settled down in front of the fire to think. She half whistled, half hissed the tune she had heard coming up the bath waste to herself. Yes, there was no doubt about it, it was the motif in the G Minor Mozart quintet. There would not be many people who would whistle that so correctly—she had some difficulty in doing it herself. Woodcock would certainly not know it. Ben’s ideas of music consisted chiefly in “Old Joe” and “John Peel”; still he could whistle very well, she thought with a sinking heart.

  It was quite impossible to be sure who the men in the boat were; it might equally well have been Woodcock or his master. She had Captain Studde’s word for it that he believed Woodcock was engaged in some sort of smuggling without his master’s knowledge. On the other hand, she had Mary’s unshaken belief that Woodcock would do nothing against his master’s interests, which she was very much inclined to believe herself. Worst of all was the story Mary had told her about the Professor landing something surreptitiously in the house, because she now felt quite certain that whatever Professor Temple was doing in the house must be with Ben’s knowledge, and that brought her to the hitherto unconsidered possibility that it was Wellende himself in the boat.

  Now if she went to him and told him simply what she had seen, she was, in fact, either making a very serious accusation against an old and trusted servant, or she was prying into Wellende’s own private affairs, neither of which lines she cared to take. Finally she decided to say nothing.

  Harry Studde, she thought, can do his own dirty work, for I am quite sure Woodcock is not harming Ben.

  Chapter XIII

  Next morning when Prudence woke, and found the fog gone, the wind sighing gently round the house, and the sun streaming in at her window, she felt as if the past night had all been a dream. Mary came and called her as usual, making no sort of reference to their nocturnal adventures.

  At breakfast she found her cousin, clad in hobnailed boots and a sporting check suit, somewhat ripe in years, but still bearing the unmistakable stamp of a good tailor. Evidently the new suit, though bought, was not yet being worn. He seemed cheerful, admitted she had been right about the weather last night, and as he had never had a shot, had come back early.

  “Where do you keep your gun-punt?” said Prudence.

  “Moored off the jetty,” he answered.

  “Don’t you use the creek up to the house, when you are going duck-shooting?” said Prudence.

  “No, never, it’s far more trouble to get down than just walking straight to the jetty and getting off from there.”

  Prudence agreed as they got up from the table, Wellende was lighting his pipe. Prudence said:

  “What tune is this, Ben?” and she proceeded to hum to the best of her ability, though rather badly, the air from the quintet. Wellende gave it his serious attention, and then said:

  “It isn’t a tune at all, old
thing; try again.”

  Prudence did try again, then gave it up and tried to whistle.

  “Ah, now I’ve got it,” said Wellende, “this is what you are after,” and in a tuneful whistle he rendered “Pop goes the weasel.”

  “How trying you are,” laughed Prudence, “this is what I am whistling,” and she made another effort, but finally had to give it up.

  He obviously did not or would not know what she was after. If it was him in the boat last night, he certainly did not intend her to know it. In that case he was undoubtedly doing something secret, and her common sense obliged her to recognize the fact that it was very unusual for a man in his position to be doing anything secret about his own house at night. Also, it was quite impossible for someone else, like Professor Temple, to be doing anything secret in that house without Ben being aware of it. She didn’t like it.

  She looked at his quiet face, and her thoughts were interrupted by his asking her her plans.

  “Yes, I am off directly after breakfast. Mrs. Sims is getting me lunch, and I shall be home by tea-time.”

  “You won’t take Stevens, I suppose?” said Wellende hopefully.

  “No, I won’t—‘a wilful woman’—yes, I know all about that, and I won’t blame you when I am drowned!”

  “Well, don’t be a fool and go out of the river, Prue; the bar is always shifting.”

  “Yes, I know it is. I thought I might go down to the mouth and anchor there, and have my lunch, and then come back.”

  By the time Prudence got down to the old wooden jetty and got off to the motor-boat in a dinghy, the tide had just begun to ebb. It was an ideal moment. She tied the dinghy to the moorings of the motor-boat and went off alone. From Wellende Old Hall to the mouth of the river is about twenty miles, but the tide was with her and she slipped along at a very good rate. A couple of miles away from the Old Hall the village of Wellende lies. Prudence passed its old-fashioned looking wooden quays, and collection of fishing boats, and a few yachts, and after that there was nothing but marshes, marshes everywhere. As the tide dropped, in places it was impossible to see at all over the river wall. Occasionally a cow stood on the dyke; but more often there was nothing but a gate and posts standing up. Now and then, what appeared to be a grey stake stuck in the mud would move, as the boat came nearer, and finally fly off.

  “I could never tell the difference between an old wooden post and a heron,” thought Prudence to herself, “if they stayed quite still.”

  The bright winter sun touched the shingle banks near the mouth and turned them into gold. A flock of very white gulls was circling overhead, and a single curlew was calling. Prudence drove fast.

  Arriving at the mouth, she saw a heap of shingle left bare and wet; and in another place a rougher tumble of water. She appeared to have forgotten what she had said to her cousin at breakfast, for without a moment’s hesitation she left the shingle heap on the starboard, and headed straight out to sea.

  After about two hours Miss Pinsent in her motor-boat again appeared at the mouth of the river, and crept cautiously round the point where she had gone out. The tide had turned for the flow. Once in the river again, she shut down the engine; she had been driving fast all the time, and it was hot. She got out her lunch—it was after two o’clock—and began to eat it. The engine was just turning very gently and the boat was coming up on the tide. The sun was going down a red ball, and the bare mud on the banks was beginning to glow red, like the sky above. It was near the time of dusk as she picked up her moorings, and pulled off in the dinghy for the jetty. She had been out just six hours.

  When she joined Lord Wellende at tea he gazed at her in astonishment; her cheeks were bright from the salt air, there was a light in her eyes, and a vigour all about her.

  “By Jove, Prue,” said he, “you are a good-looking woman.”

  “Thank you, Ben,” said she with a laugh, “but I should value the compliment more if I hadn’t heard you use just the same note of admiration in speaking of the coats of your horses.”

  She collected some letters that had come while she was out, and began to read them.

  “Bother,” she said. “They are giving some honorary degrees next week, and father has a guest staying at the Lodge, and says I must go home for two or three nights to entertain him.”

  “Well, next week is only two days’ hunting; you ought to manage so as not to miss more than one.”

  The Wellende hounds hunted five days a fortnight. Prudence had three more good days before leaving for Cambridge, and very good days they were. Twice, on different occasions, they made seven and nine mile points, the foxes running strongly and fast. The other day they had a ringer, but even he took them at a good pace. On one occasion Prudence had managed to get away on very good terms with hounds. Just in front of her to the left was the first whip, and level on the right was her cousin, who was hunting hounds himself that day. After going fast for ten minutes, a huge fence reared itself in front of them. The whip went straight for it, but Prudence observed that Lord Wellende was pulling away; for one moment she hesitated; if Ben wasn’t going to face the fence, had she better? Then in thinking, she remembered he had said he was going to ride a mare that wasn’t up to his weight, but thought she would carry him all right for a bit. Prudence rode straight for the fence. For a short time there was no one with hounds but herself and the whip; and then out of the corner of her eye she saw a red spot just behind her, and though she was too busy to look round and make sure, she knew well enough who it was.

  Oh, she thought, for the knack of being able to ride to hounds like that! To go out of your way and still not lose your place in the run!

  There is nothing in the world like sharing a run out hunting for breeding good-fellowship and trust, and Prudence tried to shut her eyes to those puzzles that were worrying her. She decided that at all events she would do her best to shut Captain Studde’s eyes; and so she invited him by wire to meet her at lunch at Ipswich on her way up to Cambridge.

  Chapter XIV

  Professor Temple had a set of rooms on the first floor in the Fellows’ Building at Prince’s College. The bedroom and one sitting-room looked out immediately over the Cam; while the more spacious sitting-room looked over the grass of the front court. They were among the best rooms in College for the Professor was one of the senior Fellows. The front room was lined with books, books from floor to ceiling, a few very comfortable arm-chairs, and a huge writing-table.

  It was a morning in November. The Professor sat at his writing-table, frowning at what he had written; then throwing it into the waste-paper basket, he re-wrote it again. But to judge from the expression of his face, this seemed no more satisfactory than the last. He got up with a weary sigh, and stood looking out across the front court.

  He was a tall man, and inclining now to a little stoutness, which added a certain dignity to his bearing. His head was fine and his chin powerful; but his complete inattention to the niceties of a daily toilet gave him the appearance of a gorilla.

  One or two gowned figures coming across the grass, seemed finally to bring his attention down to earth, and with a muttered exclamation he drew out his watch. He was due at a College Council meeting. Temple got into his gown and went out to the Senior Combination Room, where the meeting was being held, with the Master, courteous and urbane as ever, in the chair.

  He sat through its weary length much more patiently than he usually managed to do, largely because his thoughts were evidently far away. After the meeting he walked out with Professor Skipwith. Skipwith, looking as cheerful and kindly as ever, regarded Temple with a beaming smile. Suddenly the latter seemed to come to a decision; he took Skipwith by the arm.

  “Look here, you’re a good fellow; I want your help. Come to my rooms with me.”

  They went off together, but instead of going to Temple’s rooms they strolled on the grass, sacred to Fellows of the College, which
they had to themselves.

  “Look here,” began Temple awkwardly, “I want your help.”

  There was a long pause. Skipwith, thinking Temple wanted assistance in coming to the point, assured him he was ready to give any help he could.

  “Yes, yes,” said Temple, “but I have difficulty in expressing myself”; this was obviously the case, so Skipwith waited patiently. “It’s a delicate matter, in which I would invoke your kind assistance…”

  “Look here, old fellow,” said Skipwith, thinking he saw a light at last, “if you want a loan of money, I’m your man.”

  “Money,” gasped Temple in astonishment, “money be d—d; come to my rooms with me, I shall get it out better there”; and so up to the Professor’s rooms they went.

  Temple shut both doors, he then turned to Skipwith and said with a certain dignity:

  “The truth is, I admire, have indeed long admired, a certain lady, whom I should like to be nameless. You have no idea who it is?” he said, looking anxiously at Skipwith.

  “Not the least in the world,” replied the astonished Thomas. “I should never have expected you to waste two thoughts on any girl at all.”

  “Lady,” corrected Temple, “and the trouble is I don’t know how to get on with the matter.”

  There was a silence. Skipwith was trying hard to hide his immense astonishment: after all why shouldn’t the man? But he had never somehow seemed quite human enough.

  “You are a good fellow, Skipwith, and a married man, I thought you might help me,” went on Temple, after having waited in vain for a reply.

  “Well,” said Skipwith at last, “have you paid her any sort of attentions at all? I rather doubt it, and that is the way to begin.”