CHAPTER II
Mr. Johnson subsided once more into the easy-chair from which he hadrisen.
"This is most amazing!" he exclaimed. "A murder in the Great House onlytwelve months ago!"
"It do seem most unaccountable, sir," the grocer ventured, "that younever heard about it."
"I was abroad at the time and until a month or so ago," Mr. Johnsonexplained, "and it is astonishing how you lose touch with thingsaltogether after a while. I sometimes didn't open an English newspaperfor a week at a time.--Well, well," he went on, "perhaps that's thereason why they asked such an extraordinarily low rent for the house."
"It's a-many," the innkeeper observed, "who wouldn't live there rentfree--not that I'm saying that any educated person ought to take noticeof such," he added hastily. "It's a fine house and the gardens aregrand, and I only hope, sir, that you'll be comfortable and not be putoff, so to speak, by a thing that's passed and gone."
"And you say that the police have never even made an arrest," Mr.Johnson asked incredulously. "Surely that's a very unusual thing in thiscountry?"
"Unusual it may be," the innkeeper admitted, "but a fact it is, all thesame. For weeks afterwards we had gentlemen from Scotland Yard almostliving in the place. One stayed here in this very inn and the questionshe did ask were surely ridiculous. But there wasn't one of them cleverenough to find out who killed Mr. Endacott."
The new tenant of the Great House finished his drink in silence and roseto his feet.
"Well, gentlemen," he observed, "I strolled in here to make friends withany of my new neighbours who might be around and make acquaintance withthe place, so to speak, but I certainly didn't expect to hear anythinglike this."
"It's a bad start, I'm afraid, sir," the innkeeper regretted civilly,"but you'd have been bound to have heard of it before long."
"Such a stir it did make," the grocer reflected. "Every morning andevery afternoon there was a fresh rumour, as you might say."
"But not a single arrest," Mr. Johnson repeated. "Most extraordinary!"
"I hope now that you know the worst as is to be told, sir," Rawsonventured, "that you'll soon settle down here and like theneighbourhood."
Mr. Johnson inclined his head gravely.
"I have no doubt that I shall," he declared. "In many respects the GreatHouse suits me perfectly. It is just the sort of garden I want to have,the neighbourhood seems healthy, and it is not too far from the sea. Iwish you good afternoon, gentlemen!"
There was a little chorus of farewells. The new tenant took hisdeparture, swinging his stick and, though naturally a little thoughtfulafter the news he had heard, there was nothing in his manner to indicatethat he intended to take it too seriously to heart. They watched himfrom behind the muslin curtains until he opened the gate which led intohis gardens and disappeared.
"He do seem to me to have plenty of courage, and a proper man for theneighbourhood," the innkeeper pronounced, wiping up his counter. "Thereis a-many might have been struck all of a heap at being told what we hadto tell him."
"Any sort of tenant is better than none," the grocer sighed, "but afamily, I must confess, is what I was hoping for."
Rawson, as became his position, maintained a somewhat dubious attitude.
"I could wish," he observed, with a heavy frown, "that he had given ussome indication as to his previous occupation or station in life. Hiscoming in here and sitting down for a drink was friendly-like but notexactly usual. To me he seemed scarcely the sort of man whom the Squire,for instance, would be likely to take a fancy to."
"The Squire be a great gentleman," the grocer said reverently. "Therearen't many like him left in these parts. He's not likely to take upwith a stranger. Why should he?"
"Why, indeed?" Rawson assented. "Yet he seemed to take quite a fancy toMr. Endacott. Mr. Gregory, too, paid the young lady quite a lot ofattention."
"And no wonder," the innkeeper remarked. "She was a proper-looking younglady. There ain't many in these parts could hold a candle to her forlooks. You're not very gay just now at the Hall, Mr. Rawson," hecontinued.
The butler stifled a regretful sigh. Things at the Hall were a greatdeal less gay than he was prepared to disclose.
"We're generally pretty quiet during the summer," he admitted. "TheSquire was never one for entertaining much before the shooting. I didthink that Mr. Gregory being at home might have made a littledifference, but he's due, they say, to start for foreign parts at anymoment.--Six o'clock, gentlemen. I wish you all good evening."
There was a simultaneous break-up of the little party. Rawson, ponderousas ever and grey of complexion, notwithstanding his country life, firstmade a dignified exit, and, walking a short way down the village street,climbed the stile which led into the park. Mr. Craske crossed the streetand returned to the pleasant-looking, creeper-covered establishmentbehind the long shop windows of which he and his father and grandfatherbefore him had dispensed groceries and gossip for the last hundredyears. Finally the young man, Fielding, took his silent departure,mounting a motor bicycle which he had left leaning up against the wall.He glanced at his watch and reflected for a few moments.
"Be going for a ride, Mr. Fielding?" the innkeeper, who had followed himoutside, enquired.
The young man looked up and down the sleepy sun-baked street, andglanced at a signboard where the road forked.
"I may get as far as Norwich," he ruminated. "I'm wanting some newflies."
"A pleasant ride and all this evening," the other observed. "Queer it doseem these days to think of getting to Norwich and back afore dark. Themthings as you ride have made a power of difference in getting about."
The young man smiled.
"Twenty miles to Norwich," he remarked. "Forty minutes, taking it easy.Yes, I think I shall run over there."
He swung on to his machine, which started at once, and in three quartersof an hour he was writing out a telegram in a post office in Norwich.Afterwards he made a pilgrimage to a sporting emporium in the mainstreet, and with the care of an expert selected a fresh assortment offlies with which to tempt a particularly elusive but desirable trout.Eight o'clock was striking as he passed once more through the villagestreet of Market Ballaston on his way back to his farmhouse lodgings. Hedismounted outside the Ballaston Arms and stood looking about him withthe air of one absorbing to the full the gentle atmosphere of peace,beauty and rustic content.
At the end of the street, a row of houses, mostly of grey stone withdeep red tiles, opened out into the little market place, where anancient covered cross stood in the centre of a cobbled space. On a stonetrough three or four youths and two young women were seated in peacefuland almost aggressive silence. Mr. Houghton, the bank manager, wasstanding on the cool flagged pavement outside his neat little house,smoking a cigarette and chatting with Foulds, the veterinary surgeon,who had just driven up in his little two-seater car, whilst just acrossthe way, Mr. Craske's good-looking daughter had stepped out of the frontdoor to water the row of geraniums in the boxes before the windows. Fromthe Great House, set in somewhat severe isolation behind its encirclingred brick wall, came the clamorous summons of a dinner gong, and almostimmediately afterwards a similar invitation from the tinkling of Chinesebells sounded from the Little House. The melody from the latter hadscarcely died away before, from the Hall, came the slow booming of thealarm bell, rung nightly at the dinner hour.
The young man listened and into his sleepy eyes there crept aspeculative expression as they travelled beyond the village street,beyond the park, up the great grass-bordered avenue towards the windowsof the Hall. It seemed almost as though he could see into the verystately and undisturbed Jacobean dining room, see the three men who sattogether at the end of that desert of mahogany, frowned down upon bylines of pictured ancestors, their slightest need anticipated by Rawsonand his well-trained subordinates, as though he could hear their languidand stilted efforts at conversation, as though, perhaps, he could seethe ghosts behind their chairs. As though, wh
en he swung round a momentor two later, he could see into the more modest but still impressivedining room of the Great House, where Mr. Peter Johnson sat alone,before a far simpler repast, eating and drinking with a frown upon hisforehead, and lines about his mouth, no traces of which had appearedduring those more genial moments of his afternoon visit to the BallastonArms; as though, turning still a little farther round, he could see eveninto that quaint low dining room of the Little House, take note of theinvalid with golden hair and weary brown eyes, who lay upon her longchair, drawn up by the side of the round table, the discontented butearnest young woman who sat opposite to her, the harsh-featured maid,their sole attendant.
In the end he sighed and abandoned his reflections. He entered the inn,disturbing thereby Mr. Pank, the landlord, in the middle of his supper,and drank a glass of gin and tonic. Then the quick explosions of hisbicycle disturbed once more the quiet, drowsy street, as he flashedthrough the village on his homeward way.
* * * * *
Throughout the whole of that long summer day it had scarcely seemedpossible that there could be a more peaceful spot in the world than thewide street, the cobbled market place, and the winding country laneswhich emptied themselves into the village of Market Ballaston. At threeo'clock on the following morning there was not only peace but silence,absolute and complete. The two hundred and forty-three men, women andchildren who made up its inhabitants, had passed into the land ofghosts. Even the houses themselves, with their closed blinds andsightless windows, breathed the very spirit of repose. The chiming ofthe church clock, notwithstanding its silvery distinctness, seemed tocarry with it a note almost of apology to a sleeping world. Silence morecomplete than ever followed the dying away of its last trembling note.For some time not even an uneasy dog or a too eager denizen of thefarmyard ventured to disturb the moonlit pall of silence. Then came thefirst sign of human movement.
The small postern gate set in the red brick wall which surrounded theGreat House was opened noiselessly and Peter Johnson stepped into thelane. He stood there for a moment or two perfectly still, with the airof a man listening--a hopeless task, it seemed, on such a night. Whilsthe listened, his eyes wandered up and down the street, away across thechurchyard and into the wood behind, past the steeple and over thesleeping country to the horizon. It seemed, however, that if he watchedfor any unusual sight or listened for any unusual sounds, both effortswere in vain. After a few moments he took another step forward and, withthe postern gate still open, stood gazing thoughtfully and watchfullyover the medley of red-tiled roofs, up the great avenue beyond, to wherethe imposing front of the Hall, with its long rows of uncurtainedwindows, filled the background with a serene and brooding dignity. Hestood there perhaps for as long as five minutes, until he seemed tobecome part of the dreaming landscape, a statue petrified by themoonlight, the only living figure in that drama of repose, all thegeniality and kindliness drained somehow from his expression, a sinisterand watchful figure, alien and inimical.
Suddenly he seemed to stiffen. From the outside of a small woodadjoining the Hall flashed a light--little more than a pin-prick offire, but vivid and distinct. Three times it flashed. Then itdisappeared. Peter Johnson, as silently as he had come, stepped backand, vanishing through the postern gate, reentered his own domains.