by Molly Thynne
Having said her say, she stood waiting, a dignified, sturdy figure of an English spinster, a look of quiet resolution on her well-cut, weather-beaten features. Kean summed her up as a good friend and a bad enemy.
“This will mean a lot to Cynthia,” he said warmly. “And I should like to thank you on her behalf. As for myself, I entirely agree with you; but, as you know, we may have to convince people who do not know Leslie, and, however strongly we may feel ourselves on the subject, we have no real proof to offer. Frankly, I came here in the hope that you might have some evidence that would help us. You say you are practically certain that Leslie never knew your sister. Is this only conjecture?”
“Mr. Leslie told me himself that he had never met her when I spoke to him about her visit to me; but that, I suppose,” she went on with a rather grim smile, “is hardly sufficient for you lawyers! But, as a matter of fact, by sheer luck, my sister happened to pick up a snapshot of Cynthia and Mr. Leslie the morning she arrived. She recognized Cynthia from a photograph she had seen in some paper and asked who the attractive boy was with her. When I told her his name she said she had heard him spoken of at Staveley, but had never met him. Now, if what these idiots seem to suspect were true, John Leslie might have his reasons for keeping their acquaintance dark, but my sister could have had no objection to saying she knew him. Besides, from her manner, I am sure she did not recognize the photograph.”
“Could you let me have this snapshot, Miss Allen?”
“It is on the mantelpiece behind you. Keep it, if you think it will be of any use.”
“You will forgive me if I seem insistent,” he went on. “But, as you know, this is a very serious matter for Leslie. Can you think of any one, in the past, who might possibly have harboured a grudge against your sister?”
Miss Allen hesitated, her clear eyes very troubled.
“I’d better be frank with you,” she said at last. “You’ll probably think what I am about to say almost indecent, but I’ve never shirked the truth in my life and I want to leave no stone unturned to help that boy. You met my sister at Staveley, I believe, Sir Edward, and I think you will understand what I am trying to tell you. You may not know that she was divorced by her first husband and would have been divorced by her second if he had not died in the nick of time. It isn’t pleasant for me to say this and I hope it need not go any further, but that is the kind of woman she was. I don’t judge her, and I suppose it was largely a matter of temperament. She was spoiled, too, as a child. But she was a woman who was bound to have enemies, both male and female, and she had some queer friends, too. If her first husband were not dead I should have been very much inclined to put this down to him. He went to pieces, altogether, after she left him, and became just the kind of half-mad, reckless creature that might end in the dock. Thank goodness, he is out of it, but she has made many friends and many enemies since his day.”
“You know of no one in particular?” pressed Kean eagerly. “Is there nothing she said, at any time, that would suggest any one?”
But Miss Allen shook her head.
“You must remember that I was not in her confidence. We have never been intimate, and for the last ten years I have seen very little of her. I did not like her ways or her friends and I told her so. As a matter of fact, I was surprised when she proposed this visit herself. She told me when she arrived that she was economizing and wanted to put in a week somewhere in between two visits.”
“She said nothing else that might possibly be a clue? Will you search your memory very carefully, Miss Allen? There may be something that seemed quite unimportant at the time.”
He leaned forward, watching her anxiously.
“There was one thing. I didn’t take much account of it at the time and I don’t now. It was her way to make exaggerated statements. But, when she spoke of economizing, she said that, anyhow, it wouldn’t last long. She was out to make a lot of money; in fact, was practically certain of it. I asked her whether it wasn’t just another of her ‘sure things,’ for she was a born gambler, you know. And she said it was as sure as death. I’ve remembered her words since.”
“As sure as death,” echoed Kean softly. “What irony!”
“I took it for granted that she was talking either of racing or of some speculation she was mixed up in. She had a lot of queer people in tow, bookies and the sort of shady-looking men who are supposed to be something in the city. Looked like criminals, most of them, and I told her so, more than once. But I dare say they were harmless enough, really. I met her once in Paris with a man she told me was a well-known French bookie and I wouldn’t have trusted him alone in a room with my purse. They fleeced her a lot, one way and another.”
“There was nothing among her papers that pointed to any big transaction?”
Miss Allen shook her head.
“I went through them carefully yesterday. There was nothing. As I said, I don’t believe John Leslie had anything to do with this and I should like to see him cleared, but I am not so heartless as I may have sounded. I don’t say that we got on well together, but she was my sister, when all’s said and done, and I find myself regretting many things now. Perhaps if I had taken the trouble I might have been of some influence in her life. I don’t know. But I should like to see the man who did this brought to book.”
Her voice was wrung with emotion and Kean could see that she had been tried more hardly than she realized in the past few days.
“I don’t think I had ever understood the strength of blood-relationship until I saw her lying in that horrible place at Whitbury,” she muttered almost in-audibly.
Kean waited in silence. There seemed nothing he could say. She pulled herself together with a pluck that roused his admiration and turned to him.
“I’m afraid I’ve helped you very little,” she said regretfully.
“I’m not so sure. Anything may turn out to be important in a case like this. In the meantime, I am more than grateful to you, Miss Allen, for your frankness. Cynthia will no doubt see you very soon and thank you herself. In view of the fact that she may have to appear at the inquest this afternoon I considered it better that she should not be known to have been in touch with you. She saw my point; otherwise she would have come in answer to your note; this morning.”
Miss Allen nodded.
“I’m very glad she has got you to turn to, Sir Edward. If there is anything more I can tell you at any time I will let you know.”
Kean paused in the act of shaking hands.
“One thing more,” he said. “You have no reason to suspect that your sister went out with the intention of meeting anybody on Monday night?”
“I hadn’t at the time, but I have wondered since. I was writing letters in the little room I call my study when she went out. I shut myself up there directly after tea, to get through some troublesome correspondence, and left her comfortably settled in front of the fire in here. When I came back about half-past six she was gone and the maid told me she had seen her go out. I was surprised, because she hated walking and it was not the sort of weather to tempt her out of the house, but I did not get anxious until after the arrival of Cynthia. We waited dinner for her until past eight, and after dinner I sent the groom down to Keys to ask if she had been seen there. When he returned and said he could get no trace of her I began to get really anxious. Until then I had simply thought she had lost her way, and was in hopes that she might have telephoned to the inn at Keys, leaving a message for me saying she was hung up somewhere. I have no telephone here, you see, and she knew that the people at The Boar sometimes take messages for me. I sent my man straight back to Keys, telling him to see Gunnet, the constable there. But Gunnet was out and his wife did not know when he would be back. Of course, I know now that he was at the farm. Cynthia was just trying to persuade me to let her take her car and scour the lanes when the police arrived with the news of what had happened.”
“You have no idea what could have taken her to Leslie’s farm?”
�
��None whatever. I should certainly never have dreamed of looking for her there. By ten o’clock I had made up my mind that she had either lost her way or had an accident. There was a gale blowing that night and a good many trees were down, and I was afraid she might have been hit and be lying helpless somewhere. Thinking it over, I feel certain of one thing.”
Kean looked up quickly.
“Yes?”
“She never meant to go to the farm. It is two miles the other side of Keys and forty minutes’ walk from here. She was wearing an old pair of evening shoes and she hadn’t troubled to change them. No sane woman would walk even a mile on a country road in thin slippers.”
CHAPTER VI
Kean found Fayre waiting for him when he reached the hotel at Whitbury. Cynthia, he learned, had taken the car to the garage to fill up and Leslie had accompanied her.
“With consummate tact, I said I should prefer to be dropped here to wait for you,” explained Fayre. “Heaven knows how much more time they’ll have together. It strikes me as a black outlook, Edward.”
His kindly face was grave and troubled.
Kean nodded.
“I haven’t been able to get much out of Miss Allen. She is convinced that Leslie had nothing to do with it, and I believe she is right. All the same, his story is weak.”
“It’s the most infernal bad luck! If only he’d gone up to London as he intended! What do you suppose induced poor Mrs. Draycott to go to the farm?”
“If we knew that, Leslie could snap his fingers at them,” answered Kean sombrely.
He pulled out his handkerchief from his pocket as he spoke, and a small red stylographic pen came with it and rolled on the floor at Fayre’s feet. He picked it up and examined it. The cap was missing and, half concealed beneath the mud with which it was plastered, was an inkstain, running right round the pen.
“Hullo! This is the fellow I picked up!” he exclaimed.
Kean took it from him and slipped it into the pocket of his coat.
“Our one clue,” he assented dryly. “And we shall probably trace that to one of the reporters. I don’t think we need build on it.”
He pulled off his heavy coat and threw it over a chair. Then he turned and faced Fayre squarely.
“I’m going to save that boy if I can, Hatter, if things go against him,” he said. “You can tell Cynthia that, if I don’t have an opportunity myself after the inquest. We’ll hope it won’t come to that, but, frankly, I’m not sanguine.”
“Neither am I. It looks almost as if suspicion had been deliberately thrown on Leslie. It’s an inconceivably devilish scheme, if it is so. There’s no earthly reason, as far as we know, why Mrs. Draycott should have gone to his farm at all, unless she were decoyed there, and, if she were, why choose that spot? Surely it would have been as easy to shoot the poor creature in the open. It looks uncommonly as if some one had tried to plant the murder on John Leslie.”
Kean walked over to the window and stood there looking out, his hands deep in his pockets.
“It hasn’t occurred to you,” he said slowly, “that whoever did it may have known that Leslie had been subpoenaed as a witness and was due in London on Tuesday. Remember, he should, by rights, have been in the train at the time Mrs. Draycott was killed. I don’t suppose he made any secret of the fact that he was going, and news travels fast in a small country place.”
Fayre stared at him for a moment then, with a sudden look of comprehension:
“By Jove! That narrows things down a bit! If there is anything in your theory, we shall find the man is some one who either lives in the neighbourhood or who was there for a time, at least, before the crime was committed.”
Kean turned to him with a smile.
“Come to that, why ‘the man’? Women have been known to shoot people before now.”
“Women!”
Fayre stopped, appalled. There was only one woman who, so far, could be said to have any connection with the case. Cynthia had, according to her own account, gone straight home when she parted from Leslie at five-thirty. She was fairly certain to have been seen by some member of her father’s household. Supposing that, by some evil chance she hadn’t been seen? Fayre gazed at Kean with something like horror in his eyes.
“Not Cynthia?”
Kean’s smile vanished.
“Thank goodness, we can rule Cynthia out. The lodge gates are kept closed at Galston and, unless we are up against another piece of unheard-of bad luck, the lodge-keeper must have let her in. As a matter of fact, I had nobody in mind when I spoke. You were theorizing so smoothly that I couldn’t resist the temptation to point to at least one weak point in your argument. After all, as you say, the murderer may have deliberately planted the whole thing on Leslie. It is as good an explanation as any, considering how little we have to go on.”
“If it wasn’t a plant, why did he take the trouble to get her to the farm?”
Kean had turned again to the window.
“The sound of a shot carries a good way in the open air, remember. I can see our young couple. I suggest that we drop the subject, as far as possible, during lunch. I can give Leslie a few hints on the correct behaviour for witnesses afterwards. I fancy he’s a hotheaded young beggar and he mustn’t be allowed to lose his temper.”
Kean could be a delightful and interesting companion when he chose and on this occasion he laid himself out to keep Leslie’s mind off the coming ordeal, with the result that even the two people most concerned found the meal a pleasant one. After it was over Kean drew the boy aside and spoke to him very seriously while Fayre did his best to keep the ball of conversation rolling with Cynthia. She had conquered her agitation and was facing things with a pluck that did her credit; but, in spite of both their efforts, the time dragged heavily and he was glad when the suspense was over and they started for the Town Hall where the inquest was to be held.
At Kean’s suggestion they separated and he and Fayre joined the crowd in the body of the Court. Though one or two people looked curiously at the two strangers, it is doubtful whether anybody recognized the lean man with the keen eyes and hawk-like face, though his photographs had appeared often enough in the press. Their interest was focused on Leslie and on Miss Allen, who came in just before the proceedings opened and took her seat on the opposite side of the Court.
Fayre looked at her with interest. She was dressed in a black coat and skirt and a small black felt hat, of the kind affected by the more downright type of middle-aged spinster. She was pale, but composed, and was apparently oblivious of the little stir occasioned by her entrance. Catching sight of Leslie, she bowed to him, gravely, but with marked friendliness.
The Jury filed in, followed by the Coroner, an elderly man whose practice lay on the other side of Whitbury. His address to the Jury was short and to the point.
“You have inspected the body of this lady,” he concluded, “and have been shown the cause of death, a bullet-wound in the left temple. The body, as you know, has already been identified. After hearing the evidence which will be brought before you, you are called on to settle in your minds in what way the deceased came by her death.”
The proceedings opened with the evidence of Gunnet and Sergeant Brace. Brace described his visit to the farm and the discovery of the footsteps under the window and in the barn. He reported his conversation with Leslie concerning them.
“You have not, so far, been able to trace them to any definite person?” suggested the Coroner.
“We are making inquiries,” answered Brace evasively. “At present we have nothing to report.”
One of the jurors, a tradesman whose shop was on the outskirts of Whitbury, cleared his throat nervously.
“There was a tramp passed my place on Monday afternoon,” he volunteered.
There was a slight delay while he was sworn in.
“What time did you see this man?”
“Round about four. I was dressing the window, that’s how I happened to remember the time. He was going in the
direction of Keys, all right.”
“Could you describe him?”
“A smallish man. Thin, with a reddish face. That’s all I can remember. Don’t know as I should recognize him if I saw him again. I just noticed him in passing.”
The Coroner recalled Brace.
“I understand that the deceased was identified on the Monday night?”
“I went straight from Mr. Leslie’s farm to Greycross, where I interviewed Miss Allen. At my suggestion she came at once with me to the mortuary. The body had arrived there about half an hour before and she identified it as that of her sister, Mrs. Henry Draycott, who was staying at her house.”
The Coroner dismissed Brace and called Miss Allen.
“I am sorry to have to ask these questions, Miss Allen,” he said. “I will be as brief as possible. Will you tell us the circumstances in which your sister left your house on Monday night. Was it usual for her to take a walk at this hour?”
“Very unusual, I should say. It was a long time since she had stayed with me and she had only arrived the night before, but she had never been a walker and did not care for exercise, especially in bad weather.”
“Can you think of anything which could have drawn her out on such a night?”
“Nothing. I did not see her leave the house and was surprised when I discovered she was out. She had said nothing about going.”
“You can think of no reason why she should have gone to Mr. Leslie’s farm?”
“None. She did not know Mr. Leslie and, to the best of my belief, could have had no possible reason for going there.”
