The Dead Witness: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Detective Stories

by Michael Sims

  Ebenezer Dyer was not, as a rule, given to enthusiasm; but he would at times wax eloquent over Miss Brooke’s qualifications for the profession she had chosen.

  “Too much of a lady, do you say?” he would say to anyone who chanced to call in question those qualifications. “I don’t care twopence-halfpenny whether she is or is not a lady. I only know she is the most sensible and practical woman I ever met. In the first place, she has the faculty—so rare among women—of carrying out orders to the very letter; in the second place, she has a clear, shrewd brain, unhampered by any hard-and-fast theories; thirdly, and most important item of all, she has so much common sense that it amounts to genius—positively to genius, sir.”

  * * * * *

  “Griffiths, of the Newcastle Constabulary, has the case in hand,” said Mr. Dyer; “those Newcastle men are keen-witted, shrewd fellows, and very jealous of outside interference. They only sent to me under protest, as it were, because they wanted your sharp wits at work inside the house.”

  “I suppose throughout I am to work with Griffiths, not with you?” said Miss Brooke.

  “Yes; when I have given you in outline the facts of the case, I simply have nothing more to do with it, and you must depend on Griffiths for any assistance of any sort that you may require.”

  Here, with a swing, Mr. Dyer opened his big ledger and turned rapidly over its leaves till he came to the heading “Troyte’s Hill” and the date “September 6th.”

  “I’m all attention,” said Loveday, leaning back in her chair in the attitude of a listener.

  “The murdered man,” resumed Mr. Dyer, “is a certain Alexander Henderson—usually known as old Sandy—lodge-keeper to Mr. Craven, of Troyte’s Hill, Cumberland. The lodge consists merely of two rooms on the ground floor, a bedroom and a sitting-room; these Sandy occupied alone, having neither kith nor kin of any degree. On the morning of September 6th, some children going up to the house with milk from the farm, noticed that Sandy’s bed-room window stood wide open. Curiosity prompted them to peep in; and then, to their horror, they saw old Sandy, in his night-shirt, lying dead on the floor, as if he had fallen backwards from the window. They raised an alarm; and on examination, it was found that death had ensued from a heavy blow on the temple, given either by a strong fist or some blunt instrument. The room, on being entered, presented a curious appearance. It was as if a herd of monkeys had been turned into it and allowed to work their impish will. Not an article of furniture remained in its place: the bed-clothes had been rolled into a bundle and stuffed into the chimney; the bedstead—a small iron one—lay on its side; the one chair in the room stood on the top of the table; fender and fire-irons lay across the washstand, whose basin was to be found in a farther corner, holding bolster and pillow. The clock stood on its head in the middle of the mantelpiece; and the small vases and ornaments, which flanked it on either side, were walking, as it were, in a straight line towards the door. The old man’s clothes had been rolled into a ball and thrown on the top of a high cupboard in which he kept his savings and whatever valuables he had. This cupboard, however, had not been meddled with, and its contents remained intact, so it was evident that robbery was not the motive for the crime. At the inquest, subsequently held, a verdict of ‘willful murder’ against some person or persons unknown was returned. The local police are diligently investigating the affair, but, as yet, no arrests have been made. The opinion that at present prevails in the neighbourhood is that the crime has been perpetrated by some lunatic, escaped or otherwise, and enquiries are being made at the local asylums as to missing or lately released inmates. Griffiths, however, tells me that his suspicions set in another direction.”

  “Did anything of importance transpire at the inquest?”

  “Nothing specially important. Mr. Craven broke down in giving his evidence when he alluded to the confidential relations that had always subsisted between Sandy and himself, and spoke of the last time that he had seen him alive. The evidence of the butler, and one or two of the female servants, seems clear enough, and they let fall something of a hint that Sandy was not altogether a favourite among them, on account of the overbearing manner in which he used his influence with his master. Young Mr. Craven, a youth of about nineteen, home from Oxford for the long vacation, was not present at the inquest; a doctor’s certificate was put in stating that he was suffering from typhoid fever, and could not leave his bed without risk to his life. Now this young man is a thoroughly bad sort, and as much a gentleman-blackleg as it is possible for such a young fellow to be. It seems to Griffiths that there is something suspicious about this illness of his. He came back from Oxford on the verge of delirium tremens, pulled round from that, and then suddenly, on the day after the murder, Mrs. Craven rings the bell, announces that he has developed typhoid fever and orders a doctor to be sent for.”

  “What sort of man is Mr. Craven senior?”

  “He seems to be a quiet old fellow, a scholar and learned philologist. Neither his neighbours nor his family see much of him; he almost lives in his study, writing a treatise, in seven or eight volumes, on comparative philology. He is not a rich man. Troyte’s Hill, though it carries position in the county, is not a paying property, and Mr. Craven is unable to keep it up properly. I am told he has had to cut down expenses in all directions in order to send his son to college, and his daughter from first to last has been entirely educated by her mother. Mr. Craven was originally intended for the church, but for some reason or other, when his college career came to an end, he did not present himself for ordination—went out to Natal instead, where he obtained some civil appointment and where he remained for about fifteen years. Henderson was his servant during the latter portion of his Oxford career, and must have been greatly respected by him, for although the remuneration derived from his appointment at Natal was small, he paid Sandy a regular yearly allowance out of it. When, about ten years ago, he succeeded to Troyte’s Hill, on the death of his elder brother, and returned home with his family, Sandy was immediately installed as lodge-keeper, and at so high a rate of pay that the butler’s wages were cut down to meet it.”

  “Ah, that wouldn’t improve the butler’s feelings towards him,” ejaculated Loveday.

  Mr. Dyer went on: “But, in spite of his high wages, he doesn’t appear to have troubled much about his duties as lodge-keeper, for they were performed, as a rule, by the gardener’s boy, while he took his meals and passed his time at the house, and, speaking generally, put his finger into every pie. You know the old adage respecting the servant of twenty-one years’ standing: ‘Seven years my servant, seven years my equal, seven years my master.’ Well, it appears to have held good in the case of Mr. Craven and Sandy. The old gentleman, absorbed in his philological studies, evidently let the reins slip through his fingers, and Sandy seems to have taken easy possession of them. The servants frequently had to go to him for orders, and he carried things, as a rule, with a high hand.”

  “Did Mrs. Craven never have a word to say on the matter?”

  “I’ve not heard much about her. She seems to be a quiet sort of person. She is a Scotch missionary’s daughter; perhaps she spends her time working for the Cape mission and that sort of thing.”

  “And young Mr. Craven: did he knock under to Sandy’s rule?”

  “Ah, now you’re hitting the bull’s eye and we come to Griffiths’ theory. The young man and Sandy appear to have been at loggerheads ever since the Cravens took possession of Troyte’s Hill. As a schoolboy Master Harry defied Sandy and threatened him with his hunting-crop; and subsequently, as a young man, has used strenuous endeavours to put the old servant in his place. On the day before the murder, Griffiths says, there was a terrible scene between the two, in which the young gentleman, in the presence of several witnesses, made use of strong language and threatened the old man’s life. Now, Miss Brooke, I have told you all the circumstances of the case so far as I know them. For fuller particulars I must refer you to Griffiths. He, no doubt, will meet you at Grenfell—
the nearest station to Troyte’s Hill, and tell you in what capacity he has procured for you an entrance into the house. By-the-way, he has wired to me this morning that he hopes you will be able to save the Scotch express to-night.”

  Loveday expressed her readiness to comply with Mr. Griffiths’ wishes.

  “I shall be glad,” said Mr. Dyer, as he shook hands with her at the office door, “to see you immediately on your return—that, however, I suppose, will not be yet awhile. This promises, I fancy, to be a longish affair?” This was said interrogatively.

  “I haven’t the least idea on the matter,” answered Loveday. “I start on my work without theory of any sort—in fact, I may say, with my mind a perfect blank.”

  And anyone who had caught a glimpse of her blank, expressionless features, as she said this, would have taken her at her word.

  Grenfell, the nearest post-town to Troyte’s Hill, is a fairly busy, populous little town—looking south towards the black country, and northwards to low, barren hills. Pre-eminent among these stands Troyte’s Hill, famed in the old days as a border keep, and possibly at a still earlier date as a Druid stronghold.

  At a small inn at Grenfell, dignified by the title of “The Station Hotel,” Mr. Griffiths, of the Newcastle Constabulary, met Loveday and still further initiated her into the mysteries of the Troyte’s Hill murder.

  “A little of the first excitement has subsided,” he said, after preliminary greetings had been exchanged; “but still the wildest rumours are flying about and repeated as solemnly as if they were Gospel truths. My chief here and my colleagues generally adhere to their first conviction, that the criminal is some suddenly crazed tramp or else an escaped lunatic, and they are confident that sooner or later we shall come upon his traces. Their theory is that Sandy, hearing some strange noise at the park gates, put his head out of the window to ascertain the cause and immediately had his death blow dealt him; then they suppose that the lunatic scrambled into the room through the window and exhausted his frenzy by turning things generally upside down. They refuse altogether to share my suspicions respecting young Mr. Craven.”

  Mr. Griffiths was a tall, thin-featured man, with iron-grey hair, but so close to his head that it refused to do anything but stand on end. This gave a somewhat comic expression to the upper portion of his face and clashed oddly with the melancholy look that his mouth habitually wore.

  “I have made all smooth for you at Troyte’s Hill,” he presently went on. “Mr. Craven is not wealthy enough to allow himself the luxury of a family lawyer, so he occasionally employs the services of Messrs. Wells and Sugden, lawyers in this place, and who, as it happens, have, off and on, done a good deal of business for me. It was through them I heard that Mr. Craven was anxious to secure the assistance of an amanuensis. I immediately offered your services, stating that you were a friend of mine, a lady of impoverished means, who would gladly undertake the duties for the munificent sum of a guinea a month, with board and lodging. The old gentleman at once jumped at the offer, and is anxious for you to be at Troyte’s Hill at once.”

  Loveday expressed her satisfaction with the programme that Mr. Griffiths had sketched for her, then she had a few questions to ask.

  “Tell me,” she said, “what led you, in the first instance, to suspect young Mr. Craven of the crime?”

  “The footing on which he and Sandy stood towards each other, and the terrible scene that occurred between them only the day before the murder,” answered Griffiths, promptly. “Nothing of this, however, was elicited at the inquest, where a very fair face was put on Sandy’s relations with the whole of the Craven family. I have subsequently unearthed a good deal respecting the private life of Mr. Harry Craven, and, among other things, I have found out that on the night of the murder he left the house shortly after ten o’clock, and no one, so far as I have been able to ascertain, knows at what hour he returned. Now I must draw your attention, Miss Brooke, to the fact that at the inquest the medical evidence went to prove that the murder had been committed between ten and eleven at night.”

  “Do you surmise, then, that the murder was a planned thing on the part of this young man?”

  “I do. I believe that he wandered about the grounds until Sandy shut himself in for the night, then aroused him by some outside noise, and, when the old man looked out to ascertain the cause, dealt him a blow with a bludgeon or loaded stick, that caused his death.”

  “A cold-blooded crime that, for a boy of nineteen?”

  “Yes. He’s a good-looking, gentlemanly youngster, too, with manners as mild as milk, but from all accounts is as full of wickedness as an egg is full of meat. Now, to come to another point—if, in connection with these ugly facts, you take into consideration the suddenness of his illness, I think you’ll admit that it bears a suspicious appearance and might reasonably give rise to the surmise that it was a plant on his part, in order to get out of the inquest.”

  “Who is the doctor attending him?”

  “A man called Waters; not much of a practitioner, from all accounts, and no doubt he feels himself highly honoured in being summoned to Troyte’s Hill. The Cravens, it seems, have no family doctor. Mrs. Craven, with her missionary experience, is half a doctor herself, and never calls in one except in a serious emergency.”

  “The certificate was in order, I suppose?”

  “Undoubtedly. And, as if to give colour to the gravity of the case, Mrs. Craven sent a message down to the servants, that if any of them were afraid of the infection they could at once go to their homes. Several of the maids, I believe, took advantage of her permission, and packed their boxes. Miss Craven, who is a delicate girl, was sent away with her maid to stay with friends at Newcastle, and Mrs. Craven isolated herself with her patient in one of the disused wings of the house.”

  “Has anyone ascertained whether Miss Craven arrived at her destination at Newcastle?”

  Griffiths drew his brows together in thought.

  “I did not see any necessity for such a thing,” he answered. “I don’t quite follow you. What do you mean to imply?”

  “Oh, nothing. I don’t suppose it matters much: it might have been interesting as a side-issue.” She broke off for a moment, then added:

  “Now tell me a little about the butler, the man whose wages were cut down to increase Sandy’s pay.”

  “Old John Hales? He’s a thoroughly worthy, respectable man; he was butler for five or six years to Mr. Craven’s brother, when he was master of Troyte’s Hill, and then took duty under this Mr. Craven. There’s no ground for suspicion in that quarter. Hales’s exclamation when he heard of the murder is quite enough to stamp him as an innocent man: ‘Serve the old idiot right,’ he cried: ‘I couldn’t pump up a tear for him if I tried for a month of Sundays!’ Now I take it, Miss Brooke, a guilty man wouldn’t dare make such a speech as that!”

  “You think not?”

  Griffiths stared at her. “I’m a little disappointed in her,” he thought. “I’m afraid her powers have been slightly exaggerated if she can’t see such a straight-forward thing as that.”

  Aloud he said, a little sharply, “Well, I don’t stand alone in my thinking. No one yet has breathed a word against Hales, and if they did, I’ve no doubt he could prove an alibi without any trouble, for he lives in the house, and everyone has a good word for him.”

  “I suppose Sandy’s lodge has been put into order by this time?”

  “Yes; after the inquest, and when all possible evidence had been taken, everything was put straight.”

  “At the inquest it was stated that no marks of footsteps could be traced in any direction?”

  “The long drought we’ve had would render such a thing impossible, let alone the fact that Sandy’s lodge stands right on the graveled drive, without flower-beds or grass borders of any sort around it. But look here, Miss Brooke, don’t you be wasting your time over the lodge and its surroundings. Every iota of fact on that matter has been gone through over and over again by me and my chief. W
hat we want you to do is to go straight into the house and concentrate attention on Master Harry’s sick-room, and find out what’s going on there. What he did outside the house on the night of the 6th, I’ve no doubt I shall be able to find out for myself. Now, Miss Brooke, you’ve asked me no end of questions, to which I have replied as fully as it was in my power to do; will you be good enough to answer one question that I wish to put, as straightforwardly as I have answered yours? You have had fullest particulars given you of the condition of Sandy’s room when the police entered it on the morning after the murder. No doubt, at the present moment, you can see it all in your mind’s eye—the bedstead on its side, the clock on its head, the bed-clothes half-way up the chimney, the little vases and ornaments walking in a straight line towards the door?”

  Loveday bowed her head.

  “Very well. Now will you be good enough to tell me what this scene of confusion recalls to your mind before anything else?”

  “The room of an unpopular Oxford freshman after a raid upon it by undergrads,” answered Loveday promptly.

  Mr. Griffiths rubbed his hands.

  “Quite so!” he ejaculated. “I see, after all, we are one at heart in this matter, in spite of a little surface disagreement of ideas. Depend upon it, by-and-bye, like the engineers tunneling from different quarters under the Alps, we shall meet at the same point and shake hands. By-the-way, I have arranged for daily communication between us through the postboy who takes the letters to Troyte’s Hill. He is trustworthy, and any letter you give him for me will find its way into my hands within the hour.”

  It was about three o’clock in the afternoon when Loveday drove in through the park gates of Troyte’s Hill, past the lodge where old Sandy had met with his death. It was a pretty little cottage, covered with Virginia creeper and wild honeysuckle, and showing no outward sign of the tragedy that had been enacted within.