Dead Man’s Quarry: A Golden Age Mystery

by Ianthe Jerrold

  John stood by his side and looked out over the grey, mysterious lawn to the black shrubbery and trees beyond the roses that showed pale in the moon.

  “Lord, what fools we mortals be!” he murmured softly. “Why can’t we leave one another alone?”

  “We can’t do that,” said Rampson, “for obvious reasons. But we can, and should, leave one another alive. Well, good night, John. See you in the morning sometime. At present I feel it will take me a week to sleep off the tedium of the day.”

  It was about an hour before John finally dropped into an uneasy, dream-haunted sleep. He woke abruptly, every nerve taut, to hear his name whispered urgently. “John! John!”

  The room was in darkness, but the door stood ajar and somebody stood in the opening.

  “John! John!”

  “What?”

  “Wake up! There’s something going on.”

  It was Rampson. Wide awake on the instant John sprang out of bed and had stretched out his hand for the switch when his friend, a dim shape in the darkness, caught his sleeve.

  “No, don’t show a light. It’s in the garden.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.” Rampson padded to the window and looked out. “I couldn’t sleep after all, and I thought I heard somebody moving about the house and a door opening. It sounded like the front door. So I went to the window, and there was somebody in the garden. The moon’s gone down. I saw an electric torch go on among the bushes.”

  He spoke in whispers.

  John, slipping on his tennis shoes and dressing-gown, felt a queer thrill of excitement go through him, mingled with apprehension and—yes, fear. In the darkness, listening to Rampson’s fluttering whisper, he knew a strong foreboding of disaster.

  “Are we going out to see who it is?”

  “Of course.”

  “Have you any idea who it is—out there?”

  “No,” whispered John, getting to his feet and pocketing his own electric torch. “I’m a rotten failure as a detective. I’ve collected dozens of clues, but none to account for this. Come on.”

  At the door Rampson paused.

  “What about a weapon? Have you got one?”

  “Lord, no! I suppose we ought to have something. Half a jiffy.”

  He disappeared into the room on the opposite side of the passage and came out in a moment with something gleaming in his hand.

  “The revolver out of Charles’s room,” he whispered as they crept cautiously downstairs. “Luckily for us it was still there, and the cartridges with it.”

  In the wide, ghostly hall he paused a moment to load the weapon. The front door stood ajar. Silently, keeping under cover of the house, they crept along the terrace and across the lawn in the shadow of the rose-pergola. The shrubbery was before them, pitch-black and faintly rustling, as if small, secretive creatures were moving stealthily among the stems. John stood still a moment, trying to pierce that darkness. And suddenly a faint gleam of light showed among the rhododendron bushes and went out again.

  He took a few paces forward, his eyes fixed on the leaves where the light had shown through. He dared not use his own torch as yet. To his strained ears his own quiet footsteps sounded loud, alarming. A dry twig cracked and he stopped, listening for a repetition of the sound.

  Suddenly Rampson at his side closed his fingers gently and firmly over John’s forearm. John turned. Had Rampson touched him suddenly he would have been hard put to it not to utter an exclamation. But the hand closing gently over his arm seemed more urgent in its, message than any sudden clasp.

  “Look!” murmured Rampson in his ear, and turning his head John saw a dark figure moving stealthily over the lawn by the herbaceous border towards the shrubbery.

  “Another!” he breathed, and strained his eyes to identify the figure that crept along so quietly; hunch-shouldered, draped in some loose, dark garment, oblivious of John’s and Rampson’s eyes. John could dimly make out that the person, whoever it might be, was carrying a stick.

  About six yards away from the two friends, in the shadow of a tree, the figure came to a sudden halt. Too late John realized that Rampson and himself were standing unprotected from such light as there was in the sky. Too late he realized that they had been seen.

  “He’s seen us,” he murmured to Rampson. “Don’t make a sound. Stand still. Leave the first move to him.”

  For what seemed an age they stood quiet, watching the figure which, dimly made out under the tree-shadow, stood equally quiet, as if watching them. John gripped his revolver tightly, and perhaps the slight gleam of the barrel caught the eye that was watching from the darkness. For without warning there came a sudden explosion that sounded deafening in the stillness of the night, and the stranger stepped away from the shadow of the tree, levelling his gun for another shot.

  “Good God!” said John. “He’s got a gun! What lunatic is this? Take cover, quickly! Behind the cedar!”

  From behind the great cedar that stood near the edge of the shrubbery, John peered out across the lawn. The dark figure was plainer now, standing out in the open. Muffled in a long garment that fell almost to the ground, with the gun still pointing from the shoulder. John was somewhat relieved to observe that it was pointing several degrees to one side of him. The nocturnal rambler, whoever he might be, was obviously not a crack shot. He took aim with his own revolver at a spot a foot or so to one side of where the stranger stood.

  “Fire, John!” said Rampson urgently. “Don’t hit him, but fire, fire! Frighten him off and then we can go for him.”

  John perceived the soundness of this advice. A revolver in a capable hand was a more effective weapon than a sporting gun in incompetent ones. He pulled the trigger, expecting to see their adversary take to his heels. Nothing happened. No report broke the stillness of the night. He quickly examined the hammer, and taking aim, pulled again, with the same result.

  “Fire, John, fire!” whispered Rampson urgently.

  “There’s something wrong!”

  “Is it loaded properly?”

  “Yes. Did it myself. Oh, damn! It’s no use, Syd. The spring’s gone. This revolver’s a dud. We must just chance a rush at him. He’ll never hit us with that great awkward thing.”

  “I’m game,” whispered Rampson. “Both at once. Now!”

  The figure on the lawn, as they emerged simultaneously from behind the tree and rushed towards him, seemed to make a tremulous, ineffective effort to fire his gun, hesitated, dropped the weapon and fled. The flapping draperies flew around the corner of the herbaceous border, but as John broke through the tall flowers in the same direction, doubled and came back straight into Rampson’s grasp. There was a squeal, a gasp and the sound of curses and blows.

  “Good God!” said Rampson blankly, as John came up. “It’s old Clino!”

  Flashing on his torch John saw the old man struggling in Rampson’s hands. A grotesque, queer figure in a long Inverness cape over pyjamas of purple silk, and a black Homburg hat crammed down on his thick grey hair. His eyes were wild with terror and a sort of exaltation, and he was resisting Rampson’s hold to the utmost of his powers.

  “Villains! Crooks!” he was gasping as he struggled. “Lay a finger on me if you dare! You daren’t! You daren’t!” he cried, oblivious, apparently, of the fact that Rampson had all ten fingers on him. “Crooks! Villains! How do I know you’re not even murderers?”

  “We’re not yet, and we don’t want to be,” said Rampson patiently. “Do stop struggling. I don’t want to hurt you. It’s no use, you know. We’re two to one.”

  But one was quite enough to hold the old man, towering with his wrists imprisoned over his stocky captor. A queer group in the light of the little torch. John was irresistibly reminded of a healthy terrier with his teeth firmly fixed in the throat of an effete greyhound.

  “I’ll leave him to you, Syd,” said John hastily. “I must go after that light we saw in the shrubbery. Let him go, but not out of your sight. Get him to explain what he
’s up to, if you can.”

  “Explain!” cried Cousin Jim violently, as John hurried off. “It’s you, sir, who should explain! Ruffians! Yes, murder me if you like, you scoundrel! Put another nail in your coffin!”

  Rampson’s patient voice floated to John’s ears as he picked up Mr. Clino’s abandoned gun and hurried towards the shrubbery:

  “Well, let’s both explain, then. But you start. After all, you did try to shoot us, you know! I do think you owe us—”

  John switched on his torch, for after the uproar caused by the capture of Cousin Jim he could scarcely hope to take the other wanderer by surprise, and flashed it around from tree to tree. He could still hear his friend remonstrating with his captive, who was more peaceful now, though an occasional objurgation broke through the even tenor of Rampson’s voice. Even while all his senses were on the alert for sign or sound of the walker in the shrubbery, John’s mind was puzzling over Mr. Clino and his part in this night’s work. Was he an accomplice of that other who a few moments ago had shown the light of a torch among the rhododendron bushes? And if so, what in heaven’s name were they doing? Then a more plausible explanation struck John, and he almost laughed aloud. Possibly Cousin Jim, like themselves, had become aware of movements in the house and garden and had bravely ventured forth with a gun to defend his cousin’s home; and had taken John and Rampson for burglars. But this hardly explained his terror at the sight of Rampson nor the maledictions which he was even now calling down on that peaceable person’s head.

  John gave the problem up, and the next moment the light of his torch fell on something which put Mr. Clino and his aberrations entirely out of his head. A piece of pale drapery billowing in the soft, light breeze from the other side of the cedar trunk where he himself had lately taken cover. He approached cautiously over the close-cut grass, and stopped, waiting for a movement from whomever stood there hidden from him by the stout bole. The light of his torch fell on the glitter of sequins and beads: the long sash of a woman’s evening gown. And still there was no movement, except that the piece of silk still fluttered limply, caught around the rough bark of the great tree.

  Suddenly John became afraid. Had some second dreadful tragedy taken place in this dark graden? In a moment he moved round the tree, holding his torch at the level of his eyes, and though he experienced a shock of surprise, he did not see what he had dreaded.

  Blodwen Price was standing with her back against the tree, her head leaning supported on the rough bark. Her hands hung limply at her sides and her eyes were open, looking straight into John’s with a queer pensive stare. She was fully dressed in evening clothes, hatless and cloakless, and her hair, caught on the scarred surface of the trunk, strayed out in filaments like spiders’ webs.

  “Blodwen.”

  She said remotely :“Oh, it’s you, John,” and took his arm, swayed and leant heavily on him as though tired out or faint. But something wary and calculating in her bright eyes belied her action.

  “Whatever’s been going on? I heard a gun go off. I was—I was frightened and hid.”

  John caught the hesitation and reluctance of her tone, and intuitively knew that this last statement was a lie, and a lie she hated to tell. A woman of Blodwen’s strength of character does not care to write herself down a coward.

  “It was Mr. Clino. He thought we were burglars or something.”

  “Cousin Jim! Whatever is he doing out at this time of night?”

  “What are you, Blodwen?” asked John seriously, resisting her attempt to draw him away from the trees out on to the lawn.

  She looked at him with wide, feverish eyes.

  “Do turn off that beastly torch, now you know I’m not a ghost. It blinds me.”

  John lowered it from her face, but did not turn it off.

  “You’ve stained your dress,” he remarked.

  She glanced down at the green moss-stain on her light draperies.

  “I know,” she said indifferently. She began to speak very fast:“The fact is, John, I thought I heard a rabbit squealing in a trap—I know that wretched little David sets traps about the place, though he’s been told not to— and I couldn’t bear to think of the poor creature suffering out here, so I came down to look for it and put it out of its misery. I’m a fool about animals, I know.”

  “Find it?” asked John laconically.

  “No. I must have been mistaken.”

  “I’ll go and have a look for it now I’m here.”

  She pulled impatiently at his arm.

  “No, no! I’ve looked everywhere. Take me indoors.”

  He caught up the hand she had laid on his sleeve and looked at it in the torchlight. It was grimed with soil, stained with moss, and the nails were full of brown earth. He looked up from it and met her eyes, wide, desperate, full of an appeal he could not understand.

  “Blodwen, what have you been doing in the shrubbery?”

  “I’ve told you.”

  “The truth?”

  “Of course.” Morris Price himself could not have looked at a questioner with a haughtier stare.

  John detached himself from her grasp and taking his torch and Clino’s gull went on into the shrubbery among the rhododendrons where he had seen the light. The rhododendron bushes formed a little screen to a small hollow where pale heather, some harebells, moss and ferns grew in confusion. He flashed his torch over the ground and it lit at once upon a small wooden stake with a broken end of string attached, such as gardeners use to mark out borders. He picked it up and found that it was covered for eight inches from the point with traces of damp and brown soil.

  “John.”

  Looking up he saw that Blodwen had followed him. She stood a little way off like a ghost in her light gown and addressed him with sudden tremulousness.

  “Don’t bother any more, John. Go back to London and forget about us. You’ve been kind—so kind. It isn’t fair to take up your time. Leave us alone now to manage as best we may. Don’t bother any more. I ask you not to.”

  One thing was plain—there was a secret she wished to keep. What that secret might be John had for the moment no idea. But her bright eyes clung to his, her pale lips smiled with a ghastly attempt at cajolery, her hand fluttered caressingly up and down his sleeve. And suddenly John felt sick and weary. Could Morris Price only be vindicated at the expense of Blodwen? Was this woman he had liked and admired really a monster willing to let her uncle go to the gallows for her own crime? In a flash John’s thoughts travelled back over all that he knew of Blodwen and found no certainty anywhere. He asked aloud:

  “Blodwen, was it you, then, who murdered your cousin?”

  In the light of the torch he directed on her, he saw the strangest expression of surprise, uncertainty, even something like relief, pass over her face. She hung on the verge of a denial. Then, after a pause in which she seemed to collect and marshal her wits:

  “Should I tell you if I had?” she asked very low.

  Her eyes wandered to the earthy stake lying on the moss, and John, looking downwards, thought he could detect a small patch of moss around which the tiny filaments were flattened and earthy—a patch which had been removed and relaid.

  “No, no!” cried Blodwen as he stooped, and would have caught up the gun, but he was too quick for her. And even as he put his finger under the little patch of moss and found that it came loosely away, he thought: Is this the behaviour of a guilty woman? To give herself away so utterly?

  The earth was disturbed below the moss, loose and crumbling. He pressed it with his forefinger and it gave way, like a hole which has been lightly filled in. He looked around for some instrument to clear the hole, but had perforce to use his fingers. Whatever lay buried there was small and, to judge by the earth on the gardener’s stake, lay not more than eight inches below the surface. But it is not easy to clear with one’s fingers a vertical hole made by a pointed stake, especially when one has a loaded gun at one side of one and a desperate woman at the other. Luckily the ground, covered
by moss and protected by the bushes from the heat of the sun, was fairly soft.

  Blodwen, after watching him in still despair for a moment, suddenly dropped on her knees at his side.

  “John, John!” she said brokenly. “Don’t! Don’t! For your own sake as well as ours! It can do no good. You’re under no compulsion to go on with this case! Give it up! It wasn’t I who killed Charles! If it had been, I’d find a better way out than this!”

  Cautiously widening the hole with the stake and thrusting his hand down, John felt some small, hard thing like a pebble. He drew it up, and brushing the earth from it held it in the torchlight. It was a man’s heavy signet-ring of gold, set with a large oval blood-stone.

  Blodwen became silent as suddenly as she had begun to speak. They crouched together over the torch, gazing in silence at the dead man’s ring. Then John rose to his feet and offering his hand to Blodwen helped her to hers.

  “Blodwen,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice, “I know what’s the matter with you. You’ve made up your mind that your uncle’s guilty after all. Just when we’ve brought Felix to think him innocent, too. Do you know what Rampson says? He says you Prices are enough to drive a sane man crazy. And so you are, you know. All these dreadful doings at dead of night, with Mr. Clino firing guns at one, and Miss Price burying things in shrubberies, are enough to upset the nerves of Sherlock Holmes himself—”

  John let his light, matter-of-fact voice run on, hoping to bring back the overstrung woman at his side to a sense of normality. But the darkness, the night wind, the rustling, ghostly rhododendrons, were not conducive to common sense.

  “I did think,” he ended sadly, “that you were a sensible person, anyhow.”

  The sensible person gave a dim, pathetic smile and suddenly burst into hysterical tears in his arms. For a moment John wondered whether she had final, fatal proof of her uncle’s guilt. Murmuring the commonplaces of comfort he looked at the little trinket in his hand—a commonplace little ornament enough, with its plain, solid hoop of gold and unengraved seal of red-flecked green stone. Looking through the bushes, he saw that the lights were on in the library. There was peace in the garden, but for Blodwen’s smothered sobbing. Rampson had managed to lure his captive withindoors.