by Annie Haynes
A box of cigarettes stood on the table. Stoddart stretched out his hand and took one.
“There’s nothing like a smoke for clearing one’s brain; to my way of thinking, nothing beats a gasper. Lord Medchester made me take a couple of Egyptians this morning. Very good, but give me my own gold flake.”
“Yes, I hate those strong things,” Harbord assented. “But I’d smoke ’em fast enough if I thought they’d do my brain any good. It seems to be made of cotton-wool lately. Young Courtenay knows something. I am clear enough about that.”
Stoddart drew in his lips.
“So do a good many other people – Lord Medchester for one. But as to what it is, and how much there is to it, I can’t make up my mind. How did those beads come in Saunderson’s pocket, and who put them there?
“There were those few moments when the superintendent went to look at the barn, but to my mind they must have been there when he searched the body.”
Harbord lighted a cigarette and continued:
“As I see things, it must have been a woman who shot Saunderson – probably he had letters from her. He may have been holding them over her, for he seems to have been a tolerably bad hat where women are concerned. Then she searched his pocket – possibly she knew they were there, and the beads look as if they had been part of a chain, one of those long, dangling things women wear to make up for their short skirts, maybe. A chain of white glass beads is common enough. They are always catching on buttons and what not, you know, sir.”
“I don’t,” the inspector said with emphasis on the pronoun. “They never get the chance of catching on my buttons, thank the Lord. But there’s a snag in your theory, Alfred – the beads were not there when the body was found.”
“According to Superintendent Mayer,” Harbord corrected. “They were not in the bottom of the pocket, you know, sir. One of the links of the chain had hooked itself in the lining of the pocket. I think it would be quite easy to take papers or anything of that sort out without feeling the beads.”
“Only the pocket-book and papers were lying on the floor,” the inspector objected. “No use trying to make facts fit in with your theory, Alfred. And don’t make the mistake of underestimating the superintendent’s intelligence. Because he is fat and ponderous and talks with the accent of Loamshire, you do not give him credit for the brains he possesses.”
“Does he?” Harbord questioned sceptically. The inspector nodded.
“Undoubtedly. Medchester isn’t much of a place certainly, but a man doesn’t become police superintendent even there without a certain amount of ability. As for Superintendent Mayer –” He paused.
“Well?” Harbord said interrogatively.
“Those little pig’s eyes of his see further than you think,” Stoddart finished. “Oh, there were no beads when he went through the pocket; I feel sure of that.”
“Then how did they get there?”
“Ah!” The inspector lay back in his chair and smoked his gasper. “I should very much like to discover that. As I said just now, there is some nasty, hanky-panky work going on here that I don’t understand at all.”
Harbord was on the point of replying when there was a knock at the door. The landlady of the “Medchester Arms” looked in.
“Joseph Wilton is asking to see you, sir. The gardener that found the poor gentleman dead in the summer-house,” she added in an explanatory tone.
The inspector sat up.
“Show him in, please, Mrs. Marlow.”
Joseph Wilton was a clean-looking, clean shaven man, probably in the early forties. He was evidently in his working clothes, but they were whole and tidy. About him there clung that indefinable smell that always seems to hang about those who work on the land.
He touched his forehead to the inspector.
“Afternoon, sir.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Wilton,” the inspector returned politely. “I hear that it was you who found Mr. Saunderson’s body in the summer house.”
“It was, sir.” The man hesitated a minute. “It was, sir,” he said again. “I found the poor gentleman then, and now I ha’ found this here.” He put one horny hand in his trouser pocket and fumbled for a moment or two; then very slowly he produced something that he dangled before the inspector’s amazed eyes – a long chain of crystal beads linked together by a thin, gold chain. It had evidently been broken and the two ends hung loose.
The inspector sprang up.
“That, by Jove! Where did you find it?”
“Down among the rhododendrons hard by the rosery gate, on the right side. I was clearing out there and cutting the rhododendrons back a bit,” Joseph Wilton answered, shaking his find before the inspector. “I showed it to Mr. Macdonald, our head gardener, and he said I’d better bring it to you; it might be you’d want to see it, he said.”
“So I do,” the inspector said, taking the chain in his hand and examining it with care. “It is a thing I have wanted to see very much indeed, Mr. Wilton. Now, should you be able to show us exactly where you found this thing if we went back to the garden with you?”
Wilton scratched his head and looked doubtful.
“Well, maybe I could, and again maybe I couldn’t. I dessay I should be within a few yards, anyway.”
“That’ll do for our purpose.” The inspector crossed over to a cupboard that was let into the wall near the fireplace and, opening it, deposited the chain in a small box therein, and carefully locking it dropped the key in his pocket. “Well, we will walk up with you, Mr. Wilson, and you shall show us as near as you can.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll do my best.”
They all three went out of the “Medchester Arms” together and, walking up the village street towards the Hall, Joseph Wilton’s pleasure at being seen by his neighbours in the company of his obvious superiors was tempered by fear that they might imagine he had been taken into custody.
“’Twould be easier, like, to cross over there through the paddock to the blue doors and walk up to the rosery from there than to go round by the lodge,” he observed at last, pointing to a stile by the side of the road.
“Well, the quicker we are the better,” the inspector assented.
He sprang over the stile and the other two followed. The path across the paddock was pretty well defined and quite obviously led to the path at the bottom of the rosery.
“Easily accessible, the Hall gardens,” the inspector observed, looking round. “Saunderson would have had no difficulty in getting in.”
“N–o!” Wilton, too, looked round. “He could ha’ got in right enough, but the keeper’s lodge’s round there and the dogs are often out at night, and they might go for a stranger. I did hear, though, that they were all out at the Spring Wood that night looking for poachers.”
“Oh, indeed! Well, later on we might have a chat with the keeper,” Stoddart remarked with a glance at Harbord. “It must have given you a scare, Mr. Wilton, when you saw the man lying dead in the summer-house.”
“It did that,” Wilton assented. “First when I saw some one lying there the thought come to me that it was some tramp that had got in and maybe gone to sleep. When I saw what it was I turned fair sick.”
“I don’t wonder. I expect it would turn most of us,” the inspector said sympathetically. “Did you move the body at all, or touch it in any way?”
Wilton shook his head.
“I did not, sir. I saw directly I got up to him the gentleman was dead and cold, and I called out to Bill Griggs as was sweeping up leaves outside on the walk, and when he had had a look we both run up to the house to tell his lordship.”
“You were one of those who lifted the body on to the stretcher, I understand?” the inspector pursued.
“Ay! That I was, and a nasty job it was,” the other agreed slowly. “I dunno as I should care for such another.”
“This Bill Griggs you spoke of just now, was he one of the others to lift the body?”
“No, that he wasn’t,” Wilton said, pausing by a
n iron railing that ran down one side of the rosery. “There was just the two ambulance men and me. The superintendent he helped a bit, steadying the head and so forth. There wasn’t anybody else needed.”
“That so?” The inspector looked at him. “Who were the ambulance men? They would be in some sort of uniform, I presume? You would know them?”
“Y–es, I did, in a manner of speaking,” Wilton responded slowly. “They was Holford men, the two of ’em. I ha’ passed the time of day with them when I’ve met ’em, which hasn’t been often. If you could get over those railings, sir, it’d be the nearest way to the summer-house.”
“Oh, I can manage that right enough,” the inspector said lightly.
He put his hand on the top rail and vaulted over. Harbord followed suit, then Wilton clambered over.
“You are wonderfully nippy for town gentlemen,” he said, gazing admiringly at the detectives.
The inspector laughed.
“Ah, I wasn’t always a town gentleman, Mr. Wilton. You’ve no idea, I suppose, who the owner of the bead necklace might be?”
The man shook his head.
“You’re sure?” the inspector pressed. “Never seen it on any of the ladies staying at the house?”
“Ay, I am that!” Wilton said positively. “Not that I’d notice much what they got round their necks. Never saw ’em before so far as I know.”
“Bead necklaces are pretty much alike,” the inspector said thoughtfully. “I suppose we are getting near the place where you found it?”
Wilton assented as he unlatched the little gate at the side of the rosery and led the way into the Dutch garden. Right in front of them were the rhododendrons that formed the hedge between the garden and the clearing in the midst of which the summer-house stood.
“It was up here.” Wilton quickened his step until he had nearly reached the wall forming the northern boundary of the Dutch garden. “I left my shears here, you see. I was cutting back the bushes. Those leaves I brushed up near there and I saw the necklace caught on one of the lowest boughs of that there rhododendron, a fine pink ’un it is in the spring. But I couldn’t reach it from here, and there’s wire along the lower part to keep the rabbits away from the flower-beds, so I had to go to the summer-house side to get it.”
The inspector peered through. The rhododendrons were high and thick and strong with the growth of years. He marvelled how Wilton could have seen anything.
“Tidy distance from the summer-house, isn’t it? Looks as if the thing must have been put there on purpose.”
“’Tain’t so far from the summer-house as you think,” Wilton dissented. “Nearly right opposite here it is. And pretty straight across it is. If anybody came down in the dark, side of those rhododendrons, that necklace might easily get caught and pulled off. That’s how I look at it; or, again, it might ha’ been thrown there by somebody that didn’t want it to tell tales,” he finished darkly.
“It’ll tell tales all right,” the inspector muttered as he and Harbord, having marked the spot, walked off.
CHAPTER 6
“Only two women who were in the house-party for Doncaster were staying at Holford Hall last Thursday,” Stoddart said, meeting Harbord in the village street outside the ‘Medchester Arms.’ “One of them is Miss Courtenay, Lord Medchester’s cousin, the other is a Mrs. Williamson, the pretty young second wife of a retired Indian colonel, to whom she is apparently devoted.”
“That narrows matters down a little,” Harbord said consideringly. “Though of course we have no certainty that the person who shot Saunderson was a member of the Doncaster house-party, or of the party last Thursday, for that matter.”
“No certainty at all,” the inspector assented.
“In fact, there is no certainty about the whole thing except Saunderson’s death. He is to be buried to-morrow, by the way. The coroner has given the certificate. I was about to add that four men were included in both parties. Colonel Williamson, Mr. Harold Courtenay – he, of course, is the young gentleman who was so anxious to get out of our way this morning – Captain Maddock and Sir John Linford. All of those must be interviewed to-day. If possible we must see the ladies first.”
“Of course,” Harbord agreed thoughtfully. “There is also Lady Medchester. Rumour credits her with a distinct penchant for Saunderson.”
“Oh, I haven’t forgotten her ladyship,” Stoddart said quietly. “But Lady Medchester is a lady of a good many affairs – still, you can’t say she wouldn’t lose her head over Robert Saunderson. However, we will get her first if we can. Lord Medchester says we may interview the folks in the gun-room. But I fancy it will be best to ask for Lady Medchester first and see her wherever she wishes. It is curious that nobody appears to have a satisfactory alibi.”
Just inside the lodge gates they encountered Lord Medchester. He greeted them with effusion.
“I was just going down to have a word with the vicar. It’s about this funeral of Saunderson’s. Nobody seems to know anything about the fellow, and he’s left no directions that anybody knows of. I think the poor chap will have to be buried down here.”
“Hasn’t he left a Will?”
“Haven’t been able to get on the track of it if he has,” Lord Medchester said discontentedly. “They say at the bank – the United Overseas, you know – that he was joking with the manager a week or two ago about not having made a Will, and said he would when he had anything to leave and anybody to leave it to. Sort of rubbishing joke a chap does make, you know.”
“I know,” the inspector assented gravely. “Well, perhaps it will be as well to bury him here if he hasn’t expressed any wish for anywhere else.”
“Well, I can’t say I have any wish to be buried anywhere myself,” his lordship rejoined. “I’d rather stay above ground as long as I can. And I don’t want to be cremated. Beastly business that.”
“There is something to be said for and against,” the inspector said impartially. “We were just coming up to the Hall. You will understand that, purely as a matter of form, we have to ask every one who was at the Hall that night to account for his or her movements at the time of the murder?”
“What!” His lordship looked aghast. “You don’t mean everybody at the Hall? Gardeners and gamekeepers, of course. And, as I said before, the gun-room is at your service if you wish to see ’em indoors; but you can’t suspect my guests or the indoor servants!”
“I don’t suspect anybody, Lord Medchester,” the inspector said gravely. “But I have got to find out who shot Mr. Saunderson, and first of all I have to find out where every one in the immediate neighbourhood was between nine and eleven o’clock last Thursday. Perhaps I might be allowed to begin with you? You would be, I presume, with your guests?”
“Of course I was.’’ His lordship took off his hat and mopped his bald head. “Well, if that is how things are, I’d better walk back with you myself. I expect some of the folks will be a bit rattled when they know what you are up to.”
“Oh, I hope not,” the inspector dissented. “I shall only keep them a few minutes if they are sensible. You, now, will be able to tell me just who was with you at that time. That will put them out, of course.”
“I am sure I don’t know that I can.” Lord Medchester replaced his hat and turned back up the avenue with them. “Nine o’clock? That would be just after dinner. Well, we didn’t stay in the dining-room long – some of ’em started playing auction, but I always find that a bit slow myself, and as there didn’t seem much chance of poker or baccarat I went into the billiard-room with some of the others. But I had only just gone in when Mr. Burford – that’s my trainer – and Captain Maddock came in and wanted a word with us. Some of the horses were coughing, and he had taken a fancy to have some vet he’d heard of down from town. Well, we didn’t quite see it, either of us. It would have meant a pretty pot of money, and we were satisfied with old Tom Worseley, who’d looked after them before. Burford, who is a pretty obstinate chap, was inclined to argue the matter.
So we went to smoke our cigarettes and talk things over in the veranda.”
“Well, Lord Medchester, you can at least answer for it that neither Captain Maddock nor Mr. Burford was near the rosery during the suspected time.” The inspector cast a keen glance at the other’s face as he spoke.
“I am sure I don’t know that I could,” he said in a worried tone. “I was dodging about, you know, in and out from the card-room to the billiard-room talking to one and the other. When a man has guests he can’t sit in one place all the evening.”
“Of course he can’t,” the inspector agreed. They were getting near the front door, but Lord Medchester turned off across the grass.
“We’ll go in by the side door and to my study. Then I will fetch Lady Medchester.”
“Thank you.”
“She won’t like coming. I dare say you will find her a bit ratty,” his lordship observed confidentially. “And I don’t think she will be able to tell you anything. But that’s that.”
He took them in by the conservatory door and straight to his study – an apartment redolent of tobacco and scattered over with racing papers.
Lady Medchester did not hurry herself. Stoddart went over to the bookshelves.
“Who was Lady Medchester, I wonder?”
He took out a Peerage and turned over the leaves rapidly. Then he drew in his lips.
“H’m! Tells its own tale. Richard Frederick, fifth Viscount Medchester... Married Minnie, daughter of Francis, Baron Loamfield... Oh, that may account for a great deal.”
Harbord looked puzzled.
“I don’t understand.”
“Ah, well, you observe she was not the Honourable Minnie. Francis, Baron Loamfield, was about as bad as they make ’em. Lady Loamfield couldn’t stand him. But she didn’t divorce him, being a Catholic. Loamfield had any amount of mistresses and a large family of illegitimate children. Looked after ’em, too, which is more than some of ’em do. One of ’em is a butcher in Loamby. This Minnie, I have heard of her, though it had slipped my memory till I saw this paragraph. Well, Minnie was running about wild, and she took his fancy, being both pretty and independent; he had her educated and gave her a big marriage portion. But the Loamfield blood’s in her, and if she runs straight – well, there isn’t much in heredity.”
