Tragedy at Ravensthorpe (A Clinton Driffield Mystery)

by J. J. Connington

  Again the sharp click notified them that they could turn round. The panelling seemed completely solid.

  “There are just a couple of points I’d like to know about,” Sir Clinton said, turning to Cecil. “You don’t know the combination that opens the safe over there, I believe?”

  Cecil Chacewater seemed both surprised and relieved to hear this question.

  “No,” he said. “Maurice kept the combination to himself.”

  Sir Clinton nodded as though he had expected this answer.

  “Just another point,” he continued. “You may not be able to remember this. At any time after you and Foxton Polegate had planned that practical joke of yours, did Foss ask you the time?”

  Cecil was obviously completely taken aback by this query.

  “Did he ask me the time? Not that I know of. I can’t remember his ever doing that. Wait a bit, though. No, he didn’t.”

  Sir Clinton seemed disappointed for a moment. Then, evidently, a fresh idea occurred to him.

  “On the night of the masked ball, did anyone ask you the time?”

  Cecil considered for a moment or two.

  “Now I come to think of it, a fellow dressed as a cow-boy came up and said his watch had stopped.”

  “Ah! I thought so,” was all Sir Clinton replied, much to the vexation of Inspector Armadale.

  “By the way,” the Chief Constable went on, “I’d rather like to get to the top of one of those turrets up above.” He made a gesture indicating the roof. “There’s a stair, isn’t there?”

  Armadale had difficulty in concealing his surprise at this unexpected demand. Cecil Chacewater made no difficulties, but led them upstairs and opened the door of the entrance to a turret. When they reached an open space at the summit, Sir Clinton leaned on the parapet and gazed over the surrounding country with interest. As the space was restricted, Cecil remained within the turret, at the top of the stair; but the Inspector joined his Chief on the platform.

  “Splendid view, isn’t it, Inspector?”

  “Yes, sir. Very fine.”

  Armadale was evidently puzzled by this turn of affairs. He could not see why Sir Clinton should have come up to admire the view instead of getting on with the investigation. The Chief Constable did not seem to notice his subordinate’s perplexity.

  “There’s Hincheldene,” Sir Clinton pointed out. “With a decent pair of glasses one could read the time on the clock-tower on a clear day. These woods round about give a restful look to things. Soothing, that greenery. Ah! Just follow my finger, Inspector. See that white thing over yonder? That’s one of these Fairy Houses.”

  He searched here and there in the landscape for a moment.

  “There’s another of them, just where you see that stream running across the opening between the two spinneys—yonder. And there’s a third one, not far off that ruined tower. See it? I wonder if we could pick up any more. They seem to be thick enough on the ground. Yes, see that one in the glade over there? Not see it? Look at that grey cottage with the creeper on it; two o’clock; three fingers. See it now?”

  “I can’t quite make it out, sir,” the Inspector confessed.

  He seemed bored by Sir Clinton’s insistence on the matter; but he held up his hand and tried to discover the object. After a moment or two he gave up the attempt and, turning round, he noticed his Chief slipping a small compass into his pocket.

  “Quite worth seeing, that view,” Sir Clinton remarked, imperturbably, as he made his way towards the turret stair. “Thanks very much, Cecil. I don’t think we need trouble you any more for the present; but I’d like to see your sister, if she’s available. I want to ask her a question.”

  Cecil Chacewater went in search of Joan, and after a few minutes she met them at the foot of the stair.

  “There’s just one point that occurred to me since you told us about that interview you and Maurice had with Foss before you went to the museum. You were sitting on the terrace, weren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Joan confirmed.

  “Then you must have seen Foss’s car drive up when it came to wait at the front door for him?”

  “I remember seeing it come up just before we went to the museum. I didn’t say anything about it before. It didn’t seem to matter much.”

  “That was quite natural,” Sir Clinton reassured her. “In fact, I’m not sure that it matters much even yet. I’m just trying for any evidence I can get. Tell me anything whatever that you noticed, no matter whether it seems important or not.”

  Joan thought for almost a minute before replying.

  “I did notice the chauffeur putting the hood up, and I wondered what on earth he was doing that for on a blazing day.”

  “Anything else?”

  “He had his tool-kit out and seemed to be going to do some repair or other.”

  “At the moment when he’d brought the car round for Foss?” demanded the Inspector, rather incredulously. “Surely he’d have everything spick and span before he left the garage?”

  “You’d better ask him about it himself, Inspector,” said Joan, tartly. “I’m merely telling what I saw; and I saw that plain enough. Besides, he may have known he’d plenty of time. Mr Foss was going away with us and obviously he wasn’t in a hurry to use the car.”

  Sir Clinton ignored the Inspector’s interruption.

  “I’ve got my own car at the door,” he observed. “Perhaps you could go out on to the terrace and direct me while I bring it into the same position as you saw Foss’s car that afternoon.”

  Joan agreed; and they went down together.

  “Now,” said Sir Clinton as he started the engine, “would you mind directing me?”

  Joan, from the terrace, indicated how he was to manœuvre until he had brought his own car into a position as near as possible to that occupied by Foss’s car on the afternoon of the murder.

  “That’s as near as I can get it,” she said at last.

  Sir Clinton turned in his seat and scanned the front of Ravensthorpe.

  “What window is this that I’m opposite?” he inquired.

  “That’s the window of the museum,” Joan explained. “But you can’t see into the room, can you? You’re too low down there.”

  “Nothing more than the tops of the cases,” Sir Clinton said. “You’d better get aboard, Inspector. There’s nothing more to do here.”

  He waved good-bye to Joan as Armadale stepped into the car, and then drove down the avenue. The Inspector said nothing until they had passed out of the Ravensthorpe grounds and were on the high road again. Then he turned eagerly to the Chief Constable.

  “That was a splash of blood you found on the wall of the underground room, wasn’t it? I recognized it at once.”

  “Don’t get excited about it, Inspector,” said Sir Clinton, soothingly. “Of course it was blood; but we needn’t shout about it from the house-tops, need we?”

  Armadale thought he detected a tacit reproof for his exclamation at the time the discovery was made.

  “You covered up that word or two of mine very neatly, sir,” he admitted frankly. “I was startled when I saw that spot of blood on the wall, and I nearly blurted it out. Silly of me to do it, I suppose. But you managed to smother it up with that bungling with your lamp before I’d given anything away. I’d no notion you wanted to keep the thing quiet.”

  “No harm done,” Sir Clinton reassured him. “But be careful another time. One needn’t show all one’s cards.”

  “You certainly don’t,” Armadale retorted.

  “Well, you have all the facts, Inspector. What more do you expect?”

  Armadale thought it best to change the subject.

  “That water that we saw down there,” he went on. “That never leaked in through the roof. The masonry overhead was as tight as a drum and there wasn’t a sign of drip-marks anywhere. That water came from somewhere else. Someone had been washing up in that cellar. There had been more blood there—lot’s of it; and they’d washed it away. That ti
ny patch was a bit they’d overlooked. Isn’t that so, sir?”

  “That’s an inference and not a fact, Inspector,” Sir Clinton pointed out, with an expression approaching to a grin on his face. “I don’t say you’re wrong. In fact, I’m sure you’re right. But only facts are supposed to go into the common stock, remember.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  But the Inspector had something in reserve.

  “I’ll give you a fact now,” he said with ill-suppressed triumph. “As you came away, you happened to ask Mr Chacewater if he’d come home by the first train this morning.”

  “Yes.”

  “And he said he did?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well,” said Armadale, with a tinge of derision in his voice, “he took you in, there; but he didn’t come over me with that tale. He didn’t come by the first train; he wasn’t in it! And what’s more, he didn’t come by train to our station at all, for I happened to make inquiries. I knew you were anxious for him to come back, and I thought I’d ask whether he’d come.”

  “That’s very interesting,” said Sir Clinton.

  He made no further remark until they reached the police station. Then, as they got out of the car, he turned to the Inspector.

  “Care to see me do a little map-drawing, Inspector? It might amuse you.”

  Chapter Twelve

  CHUCHUNDRA’S BODY

  SIR CLINTON’S map-drawing, however, was destined to be postponed. Hardly had they entered his office when the telephone bell rang. After a few moments’ conversation he put down the receiver and turned to Armadale.

  “That’s Mold, the keeper. He’s found Maurice Chacewater’s body. He’s telephoning from his own cottage, so I told him to wait there and we’ll go up in the car. The body’s in the woods and we’ll save time by getting Mold to guide us to it instead of hunting round for the place.”

  It did not take long to reach the head keeper’s cottage, where they found Mold in a state of perturbation.

  “Where is this body?” Sir Clinton demanded, cutting short Mold’s rather confused attempts to explain matters. “Take us to it first of all and then I’ll ask what I want to know.”

  Under the keeper’s guidance they made their way through the woods, and at last emerged into a small clearing in the centre of which rose a few ruined walls.

  “This is what they call the Knight’s Tower,” Armadale explained.

  Sir Clinton nodded.

  “I expected something of the sort. Now, Mold, where’s Mr Chacewater’s body?”

  The keeper led them round the Tower, and as they turned the corner of a wall they came upon the body stretched at full length on the grass.

  “The turf’s short,” said Armadale, with some disappointment. “There’s no track on it round about here.”

  “That’s true,” said Sir Clinton. “We’ll have to do without that help.”

  He walked over to where Maurice Chacewater was lying. The body was on its back; and a glance at the head was enough to show that life must be extinct.

  “It’s not pretty,” Sir Clinton said as he pulled out his handkerchief and covered the dead face. “Shot at close range, evidently. I don’t wonder you were a bit upset, Mold.”

  He glanced round the little glade, then turned again to the keeper.

  “When did you find him?” he demanded.

  “Just before I rang you up, sir. As soon as I came across him, I ran off to my cottage and telephoned to you.”

  “When were you over this ground last?—before you found him, I mean.”

  “Just before dusk, last night, sir. He wasn’t there, then.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Certain, sir. I couldn’t have missed seeing him.”

  “You haven’t touched the body?”

  Mold shuddered slightly.

  “No, sir. I went off at once and rang you up.”

  “You met no one hereabouts this morning?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And you saw no one last night, either?”

  “No, sir.”

  “It was somewhere round about here, wasn’t it, that you heard that mysterious shot you told us about?”

  “Yes, sir. I was just here at the time.”

  Mold walked about twenty yards past the tower, to show the exact position. Sir Clinton studied the lie of the land for a moment.

  “H’m! Have you any questions you want to ask, Inspector?”

  Armadale considered for a moment or two.

  “You’re sure you haven’t moved this body in any way?” he demanded.

  “I never put a finger on it,” Mold asserted.

  “And it’s lying just as it was when you saw it first?” Armadale pursued.

  “As near as I can remember,” Mold replied, cautiously. “I didn’t wait long after I saw it. I went off almost at once to ring up the police.”

  Armadale seemed to have got all the information he expected. Sir Clinton, seeing that no more questions were to come, turned to the keeper.

  “Go off to the house and tell Mr Cecil Chacewater that his brother’s found and that he’s to come here at once. You needn’t say anything about the matter to anyone else. They’ll hear soon enough. And when you’ve done that, ring up the police station and tell them to send up a sergeant and a couple of constables to me here. Hurry, now.”

  Mold went without a word. Sir Clinton waited till he was out of earshot and then glanced at Armadale.

  “One thing stares you in the face,” the Inspector said in answer to the look. “He wasn’t shot here. That wound would mean any amount of blood; and there’s hardly any blood on the grass.”

  Sir Clinton’s face showed his agreement. He looked down at the body.

  “He’s lying on his back now; but after he was shot he lay on his left side till rigor mortis set in,” he pointed out.

  The Inspector examined the body carefully.

  “I think I see how you get that,” he said. “This left arm’s off the ground a trifle. If he’d been shot here and fell in this position, the arm would have relaxed and followed the lie of the ground. Is that it?”

  “Yes, that and the hypostases. You see the marks on the left side of the face.”

  “A dead man doesn’t shift himself,” the Inspector observed with an oracular air. “Someone else must have had a motive for dragging him about.”

  “Here’s a revolver,” Sir Clinton pointed out, picking it up gingerly to avoid marking it with finger-prints. “You can see, later on, if anything’s to be made out from it.”

  He put the revolver carefully down on a part of the ruined wall near at hand and then returned to the body.

  “To judge by the rigor mortis,” he said, after making a test, “he must have been dead for a good while—a dozen hours or more.”

  “What about that shot that the keeper said he heard?” queried Armadale.

  “The time might fit well enough. But rigor mortis is no real criterion, you know, Inspector. It varies too much from case to case.”

  Inspector Armadale pulled out a small magnifying glass and examined the dead man’s hand carefully.

  “Those were his finger-prints on that Japanese sword right enough, sir,” he pointed out. “You can see that tiny scar on the thumb quite plainly if you look.”

  He held out the glass, and Sir Clinton inspected the right thumb of the body minutely.

  “I didn’t doubt it from the evidence you had before, Inspector; but this certainly clinches it. The scar’s quite clear.”

  “Shall I go through the pockets now?” Armadale asked.

  “You may as well,” Sir Clinton agreed.

  Inspector Armadale began by putting his fingers into the body’s waistcoat pocket. As he did so his face showed his surprise.

  “Hullo! Here’s something!”

  He pulled out the object and held it up for Sir Clinton’s inspection.

  “One of the Leonardo medallions,” Sir Clinton said, as soon as he had identified the
thing. “Let me have a closer look at it, Inspector.”

  He examined the edge with care.

  “This seems to be the genuine article, Inspector. I can’t see any hole in the edge, which they told me was drilled to distinguish the replicas from the real thing. No, there’s no mark of any sort here.”

  He handed it back to the Inspector, who examined it in his turn. Sir Clinton took it back when the Inspector had done with it, and placed it in his pocket.

  “I think, Inspector, we’ll say nothing about this find for the present. I’ve an idea it may be a useful thing to have up our sleeve before we’ve done. By the way, do you still connect Foxton Polegate with this case?”

  Armadale looked the Chief Constable in the eye as he replied.

  “I’m more inclined to connect Cecil Chacewater with it, just now, sir. Look at the facts. It’s been common talk that there was ill-feeling between those two brothers. Servants talk; and other people repeat it. And the business that ended in the final row between the two of them was centred in these Leonardo medallions. That’s worth thinking over. Then, again, Cecil Chacewater disappeared for a short while. You couldn’t get in touch with him. And it was just at that time that queer things began to happen here at Ravensthorpe. Where was he then? It seems a bit suggestive, doesn’t it? And where was he last night? If you looked at him this morning, you couldn’t help seeing he’d spent a queer night, wherever he spent it. That was the night when this body was brought here from wherever the shooting was done. And when you asked Cecil Chacewater how he’d come home, he said he’d arrived by the first train this morning. That was a lie. He didn’t come by that train. He’d been here before that.”

  To the Inspector’s amazement and disgust Sir Clinton laughed unaffectedly at this exposition.

  “It’s nothing to laugh at, sir. You can’t deny these things. I don’t say they prove anything; but you can’t brush them aside merely by laughing at them. They’ve got to be explained. And until they’ve been explained in some satisfactory way things will look very fishy.”

  Sir Clinton recovered his serious mask.

  “Perhaps I laughed a little too soon, Inspector. I apologize. I’m not absolutely certain of my ground; I quite admit that. But I’ll just give you one hint. Sometimes one case looks as if it were two independent affairs. Sometimes two independent affairs get interlocked and look like one case. Now just think that over carefully. It’s perhaps got the germ of something in it, if you care to fish it out.”