CHAPTER I
The new tenant of the Great House, installed within twelve months of itsdramatic vacancy, issued one evening through the small postern gate, setin the red brick wall which encircled his gardens, into the villagestreet. This was his first appearance since he had taken up hisresidence in the neighbourhood, and he was consequently an object ofabsorbed interest to such few loiterers as were about. An elderlyroadmender, who was making half-hearted assaults upon a broken piece ofroad with a pickax which seemed too heavy for him, looked up curiouslyand touched his hat. The postmistress, warned by a subordinate, hastenedimmediately to the entrance of her establishment as though to consultthe church clock. Mr. Franks, the butcher at the corner of the street,hurried out on the pretext of giving some parting instructions to a boywho was just starting off on his bicycle with a special order for theHall, and Mrs. Moles, who kept a small general shop and was reputed toknow the genealogy, morals and predilections of every one within a dozenmiles around, stared unabashed over the top of her curtains.
The first impressions of the newcomer, to be privately exchanged withinthe next hour or so, could scarcely fail to be favourable. Peter Johnsonappeared to be a man a little under medium height, sturdy, clean-shaven,with bright, steady eyes, humorous mouth, brown, sun-dried complexionand hair inclined to greyness. He wore a tweed knickerbocker suit, aHomburg hat; he carried an ash stick, and his age might have beenanything between forty and fifty.
No one was more interested in their new neighbour who was now engaged inmaking his leisurely way along the village street, than the three men inthe bar parlour of the Ballaston Arms. Conscious of their owninvisibility behind the muslin curtains, they yielded without restraintto their curiosity.
"He do seem an ordinary kind of a man," Thomas Pank, the innkeeperobserved critically.
"A sportsman, maybe," Mr. Craske, the grocer, suggested, appreciatingthe costume of the approaching figure.
Rawson, the butler from the Hall, shrugged his shoulders doubtfully.Every one listened for his comment with interest. He was admitted to bea man of the world and a person of considerable experience.
"I should say not," he decided. "He is wearing the clothes of a countrygentleman, but to my mind he wears them as though he weren't used tothem."
The only stranger in the neighbourhood, a young man of sandy complexion,of silent habits, and with rather sleepy eyes, who had lodgings in thefarmhouse close by and was understood to be a schoolmaster taking aprolonged vacation, set down his glass and intervened. He, too, waswatching the newcomer with some interest.
"He is asking for some shooting, Farmer Kershaw told me."
"That don't go to prove nothing," the innkeeper declared. "There's manyas shoots now out from Norwich and the big towns that don't know one endof the gun from the other. What I say is that it's a queer thing that aman with no friends around, a solitary man too, by all accounts, shouldcome and settle in a place like this, and in that particular house too.Mysterious, I call it!"
"I am of the same opinion," Rawson agreed.
"Hold on, you chaps!" the innkeeper enjoined, in a tone of someexcitement. "He's coming right in here!"
The pseudo-schoolmaster, whose name was understood to be Fielding, wasthe only one of the little company who did not show signs ofembarrassment as the latch of the door was lifted, the door itselfpushed open, and the subject of their conversation made his appearance.The grocer had plunged rather too abruptly into the discussion of somelocal topic with the butler, and the innkeeper was too taken aback toconceal his astonishment at this unexpected visit. Mr. Johnson, however,was one of those people who carry with them a composing influence andthe slight awkwardness was of very short duration.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen," he greeted them, glancing around with quietgeniality. "I should like a whisky and soda, Mr. Landlord."
"That's right, sir," was the latter's prompt reply, as he turned to hisshelf.
"My name is Johnson--Peter Johnson," the newcomer continued,establishing himself in a vacant easy-chair. "I have come to live for atime at the Great House."
"Very glad to welcome you here, sir," Mr. Craske assured him civilly.
"Hope you'll find the place to your liking, sir," Rawson put in.
"I am very much obliged to you all," was the gratified rejoinder. "Myfirst impressions are entirely favourable. I have been a hard worker andI need a little rest. So far as I can judge, this seems to me to be aparticularly tranquil neighbourhood."
There was for a moment an almost awkward hiatus in the conversation. Theinnkeeper and the grocer exchanged glances. Rawson coughed.
"It has always been considered so in the past, sir," the latteracknowledged.
"This being my first visit, you gentlemen will perhaps join me," Mr.Johnson invited, as he received his whisky and soda.
Every one accepted the invitation, including the presumed schoolmaster,who had not as yet spoken. Mr. Johnson observed him keenly fromunderneath his rather heavily lidded eyes.
"Are you a native of these parts?" he enquired.
"I am more or less a stranger," was the somewhat reserved reply. "I,like you, have come down for a little quiet."
"Can't say as your manner of living quiet would altogether suit me," thegrocer remarked cheerily. "The young gentleman's a naturalist, sir," heexplained, turning to the principal guest of the afternoon. "He goesmoth hunting with a net, round the mere side and across to Cranley Swampat night. That's not a job as would suit every one."
Mr. Johnson was politely interested. The young man smiled inexpostulatory fashion.
"I am only an amateur," he confessed, "and I only go out odd nightsduring the week. I miss my sleep too much."
"You'll not be finding much company in these parts, I'm afraid," theinnkeeper observed, making polite conversation with the stranger."There's not so many of the gentry living round as there used to be."
Mr. Johnson showed signs of interest.
"Well," he said, "I'm a great reader and I'm fond of the country, so Imust make the best of it. Tell me something about my neighbours. Wholives in the long, low house across the way from my garden gate?"
"That's what we do call the Little House, sir," the innkeeper replied."It belongs to a poor invalid lady, who don't seem to get any stronger.De Fourgenet, her name is--or something like that--she having married aforeigner. But most of the folk round here just call her 'Madame.' She'san English lady but she have lived abroad a great deal. According to herletters she do be some sort of a titled lady, but she don't seem to holdto it herself."
"An invalid, eh?" Mr. Johnson enquired sympathetically.
"They do say, sir, that it's her spine," the grocer confided. "Anyway,she's mostly lying down. Some time ago they took her to one of themFrench places, but it don't seem to have done her much good."
"Aix-les-Bains, it was," the butler put in. "I've been there with mygentlemen before now. In fact, it was through us, I think, that she wentthere."
"Did it do her no good at all?"
"Some say it made a difference and some say it didn't," was the doubtfulreply. "Anyway, there's a physician comes to see her now once a month,and she has massage regularly from Norwich. It looks as though therewere still some hope."
"Is she--er--inclined to be sociable?" her new neighbour enquired.
The grocer shook his head.
"I'm afraid she isn't disposed that way, sir," he declared. "She and theSquire have been great friends all their lives, and he visits herregular, but she don't see none of the other folk round if she can helpit."
"That doesn't sound encouraging," Mr. Johnson commented. "Does she livequite alone?"
"She has a companion," the innkeeper answered--"a Miss Besant. A niceproper-spoken young woman, but keeps herself to herself. There was aniece too--lived at the Great House, she did--but she went away about ayear agone and she hasn't been in these parts since."
"As a neighbour," Mr. Johnson confessed, with a little sigh, "Madameappe
ars to be a wash-out. Let's hear about the rest of the folk."
"Well," the innkeeper continued, taking a modest pull at his owntankard, "there do be the vicar, for sure, but he bain't no use tonobody these days. A man more changed than he I never did see."
"A sombre, silent man he is now, surely," the grocer confirmed.
The butler nodded ponderous agreement.
"He used to dine with us once a week regular, but hasn't been near theHall since--not for eleven months. They say that he never stirs out ofhis study now."
"I was looking over his garden wall only last night," the innkeeperobserved. "It do seem--the whole place--to be going to rack and ruin.And he so proud of his garden, too."
"He has had some sort of a loss, perhaps," Mr. Johnson suggested.
"None as any one knows of," the butler affirmed. "He's a widower andhave lived alone ever since he came here. There are some who say thathe's had a falling out with the Squire, but if that be so, none of ushave heard of it."
"The Squire?" Mr. Johnson repeated hopefully. "And who might he be?"
The butler's manner betokened hurt surprise.
"The Squire, sir--my master--is Sir Bertram Ballaston of BallastonHall."
"An old family?"
"The sixteenth baronet."
Mr. Johnson was properly impressed.
"Any family?" he enquired.
"One son--Mr. Gregory Ballaston. Then the Squire's brother--Mr. HenryBallaston--lives at the Hall with him," the butler added, after ascarcely perceptible pause. "Not that he's much company for any one,though."
"Indeed," Mr. Johnson murmured. "Is he too a recluse or an invalid?"
There seemed to be a marked disinclination to discuss the inmates of theHall. The innkeeper looked out of the window, Mr. Craske gazed into histankard, the young man remained still almost outside the conversation.
"Things up at the Hall," the butler confided, with some reserve, "arenot what they used to be. There have come a change over the place."
"A change indeed," the grocer sighed gloomily.
Mr. Johnson sensed reserves and prepared for departure.
"Well, I must be tiring you with all my questions," he declaredgood-humouredly. "I'm going to ask you one more, though. Is it my fancy,or wasn't this place--Market Ballaston--the scene of some sort of atragedy some time ago? The name--Market Ballaston--seemed familiar to medirectly I read the advertisement, but I couldn't recall what it was. Ifit was anything serious, it must have been whilst I was abroad."
They all looked at him incredulously. The innkeeper picked up a glassand began to wipe it. The grocer coughed nervously. Even the butlerseemed at a loss for words.
"You'll excuse us, sir," Mr. Craske said at last. "This is a very smallplace, of course, and when a thing happens right in the midst of us likewhat did happen, it seems to us somehow as though the whole world oughtto know about it. Still there was a lot of stir--a lot of stir in allthe London newspapers."
"I am a careless reader of the newspapers," Mr. Johnson confessed."Besides which, the last twenty years of my life, up to a few monthsago, have been spent, not only abroad, but a very long way abroad. Fillup the glasses, Mr. Innkeeper. I have asked you so many questions thatyou must allow me to be host once more. Now tell me what it was thathappened here."
They all exchanged glances. As though by common but unspoken consent thebutler became spokesman.
"There was a very terrible murder committed in this village, sir, justabout twelve months ago. A gentleman was killed in the night--shotthrough the head, he was--and never a trace of the murderer from thatday to this."
"Good God!" Peter Johnson exclaimed, properly shocked. "I am beginningto remember something about it."
"It was a gentleman of the name of Endacott, from foreign parts likeyou," the butler continued, "own brother to Madame at the Little House.He hadn't been here very long, but he was a harmless body and wellliked. He had dined with us at the Hall--him and his niece, a verybeautiful young lady--her as Mr. Pank spoke of, being also niece toMadame--and it seemed as though we were going to become quite friendly.One morning--there he was--seated at his desk where he used to work atnights--shot through the head and stone dead, and a box of papers thatwas by his side all scattered about anyhow. There was police come fromNorwich, and there was police come from Scotland Yard in London, butfrom that day to this they do seem to have been fairly outwitted."
"What a terrible thing," Mr. Johnson exclaimed. "In a small place likethis, too! Where did it happen? Where did you say he lived?"
There was another embarrassed silence. This time it was the grocer whointervened. There was a note of indignation in his tone.
"If the agent as let the property--Mr. Borroughes, I suppose itwas--said nothing about it, sir, then there's no doubt he was very muchto blame. The murder was committed in the Great House, where you've cometo live. Mr. Endacott and his niece were the last tenants."