CHAPTER V
SERGEANT WESTAWAY was flattered at the manner in which his theory ofthe murder had been received by men who were far more experienced thanhimself in investigating crime. His sallow cheeks flushed with pleasureand his pessimism waned a little. In his determination to place hishearers in possession of all the facts concerning the crime and thevictim he gave them details regarding Lumsden's mode of life at CliffFarm after his discharge from the army, and the gossip that was currentin the district concerning him. While he was dealing with these mattersthey heard a motor-car approaching. It stopped outside the gates of thefarmhouse, and the three police officials went to the door to see whohad arrived.
"Why, it's Crewe!" exclaimed Detective Gillett, in a tone of surprise."I wonder who has put him on to this?"
"That is Sir George Granville with him--the stout elderly man," saidInspector Payne.
"The other gentleman is Mr. Marsland," said Sergeant Westaway.
"Which is Crewe and which is Marsland?" asked Inspector Payne.
"The tall one on the left is Crewe," answered Detective Gillett.
As a police official, Inspector Payne was indignant at the idea ofCrewe intruding into the case, but as a man he was delighted at theopportunity of meeting the famous private detective who had so oftenscored over Scotland Yard by unravelling mysteries which had baffledthe experts of the London detective department. Crewe's fame had evenpenetrated to Ashlingsea, and Sergeant Westaway studied the privatedetective with awed interest as the three occupants of the motor-carwalked up the drive.
Inspector Payne had pictured Crewe as a more striking personalitythan the tall young man in tweeds who was accompanying Sir GeorgeGranville and his nephew. The latter was talking earnestly, and Crewewas listening closely. Inspector Payne had an opportunity of noting thedistinction and character which marked the detective's face in repose:the clear, clean-cut profile, the quick penetration and observation ofhis dark eyes as they took in the exterior of Cliff Farm. He concludedthat Crewe was rather young for the fame he had achieved--certainlyunder forty: that he liked his face; that he looked like a gentleman;and that his tweed suit displayed a better cut than any provincialtailor had ever achieved.
His companion, Sir George Granville's nephew, was a young man of Saxontype, fair-haired, blue-eyed, with a clear skin which had been tannedbrown as the result of his war campaigning in France. He was two orthree inches shorter than Crewe, but was well set up and well-built,and although he did not wear khaki his recent connection with the armywas indicated by his military carriage and bearing.
After the necessary introductions Crewe explained with an air ofmodesty that, Sir George Granville's nephew having had the misfortuneto become associated with the tragedy through the discovery of thebody, Sir George, as a public man, had conceived the idea that he oughtto do something towards discovering the author of the crime. That washow he himself came to be present. He hoped that he would not be in theway of the police.
"Not at all; not at all," said Inspector Payne, answering for theCounty Police. "We'll be glad of your help. And as for anything we cando for you, Mr. Crewe, you have only to ask."
"That is very kind of you," said Crewe.
"You are just in time," continued Inspector Payne. "Gillett and I havebeen here only a few minutes. We were just going upstairs to look atthe body when you arrived."
On their way upstairs Gillett drew attention to some marks on themargin of the stairs between the carpet on the staircase and the wall.These marks were irregular in shape, and they looked as if they hadbeen made by wiping portions of the stairs with a dirty wet cloth. Someof the stairs bore no mark.
"It seems to me that some one has been wiping up spots of blood on thestairs," said Inspector Payne, as he examined the marks closely.
On the linoleum covering the landing of the first flight there weremore traces of the kind, the last of them being beside the door of theroom in which the body had been discovered.
The dead man was still in the arm-chair near the window. There wassuch a resemblance to life in his stooping posture that the menentering the room found it difficult at first to realize they wereconfronted with the corpse of a man who had been murdered. A ray ofsunlight fell through the narrow window on the bent head, revealingthe curly brown hair and the youthful contour of the neck. The rightarm was slightly extended from the body towards the table near thearm-chair in which the corpse was seated, as though the murdered manhad been about to pick up the pocket-book which lay on the table.The pocket-book was open, and the papers which had been in it werescattered about the table.
Payne, Gillett and Crewe inspected the body closely. Sir GeorgeGranville and Marsland waited a little distance away while the othersconducted their examination. The dead man had been fully dressed whenhe was shot. On the left side of his vest was the hole made by thebullet, and around it was a discoloured patch where the blood, oozingfrom the wound, had stained the tweed. There were numerous blood-stainson the floor near the dead man's feet, and also near the window at theside of the arm-chair.
"I see that the window is broken," said Inspector Payne, pointing toone of the panes in the window near the arm-chair.
"By a bullet," said Sergeant Westaway. He pulled down the window blindand pointed to a hole in it which had evidently been made by a bullet."When I came in the blind was down. I pulled it up in order to let insome light. But the fact that there is a hole in the window blind showsthat the murder was committed at night, when the blind was down. Ishould say two shots were fired. The first went through the window, andthe other killed him."
"I think the bullet that killed him has gone through him," said Crewe,who had moved the body in order to examine the back of it. "It looks asif he was shot from behind, because the wound in the back is lower downthan the one in front." He pointed to a hole in the back of the coatwhere the cloth showed a similar discoloured patch to the one in thevest.
"It must have been a powerful weapon if the bullet has gone throughhim," said Gillett. "That means we shall have no bullet to guide usas to the calibre of the weapon, unless we can find the one that wentthrough the window."
"Perhaps there was only one shot fired after all," remarked InspectorPayne. "The victim may have been standing by the window when he wasshot, and then have staggered to the chair. Otherwise if he were shotin the back while sitting in the chair the bullet should be embedded inthe chair or wall. But I can see no sign of it."
"Not necessarily," said Gillett. "Look at the position on thearm-chair. It is possible that the bullet, after going through the man,went through the window. That would account for the broken pane ofglass."
The pocket-book and the papers it contained were next examined.Inspector Payne asked Marsland concerning the mysterious plan he hadpicked up on the stairs. Marsland borrowed a sheet of paper from theinspector's large official note-book and drew a rough sketch of theplan as he remembered it. He explained that as he had lost his glasseswhile out in the storm he had not been able to make a close study ofthe plan. While he was engaged in reproducing the plan as far as heremembered it, Sergeant Westaway enlightened Crewe and Sir GeorgeGranville about the theory he had formed that the murderer was in thehouse when Marsland discovered the body, and that, after Marsland left,the murderer made his escape and took from the sitting-room downstairsthe plan he had dropped on the stairs when he heard Marsland in thehouse.
"What do you make of this, Mr. Crewe?" asked Inspector Payne, as hetook up the paper on which Marsland had sketched what he recalledof the plan. "Do you think this was meant to show where the oldgrandfather had his money?"
"That is very probable," said Crewe. "But it is not worth while tryingto solve the riddle from a sketch drawn from memory. Get the murdererand you will probably get the original plan as well."
Sergeant Westaway, in pursuance of his duties as guide, took hisvisitors downstairs to the sitting-room for the purpose of showingthem how the window had been forced in order to provide an entrance.He pointed to a mark on
the sash which indicated that a knife had beenused to force back the catch.
This was the room in which Miss Maynard had been sitting when Marslandhad arrived to obtain shelter from the storm. Marsland noticed thechair beside which she had stood while they were in the room togetherbefore going upstairs to investigate the cause of the crash they hadheard. He gave a start as he saw behind the chair a small tortoiseshellcomb such as ladies sometimes wear to keep their hair up. He stoopedquickly to pick it up, and as he did so he realized that he hadblundered badly. In order to rectify the blunder he made a weak attemptto hide the comb, but he saw Detective Gillett's eye on him.
"What have we here?" asked the Scotland Yard man genially.
Marsland held out his hand with the comb resting in it.
"A woman in the case," commented Inspector Payne. "That ought to helpto simplify matters."
Marsland bit his lips at the thought of how he had been false to hispromise to Miss Maynard. He had kept her name out of the discovery ofthe crime, but he had unwittingly directed attention to the fact that awoman had only recently been in that room.
The comb was handed to Crewe for examination. It was about three incheslong and was slightly convex in shape. On the outside was a thin stripof gold mounting. Crewe handed the comb back.
"You sat in this room before going upstairs, Marsland?" he asked,turning to Sir George's nephew.
"Yes; I was here about a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes."
"Was the window open when you came in? Did you close it?"
"I did not close it, but it must have been closed, as otherwise I wouldhave noticed it open. It was raining and blowing hard while I washere." Marsland thought to himself that any information he could giveabout the window was useless in view of the fact that Miss Maynard hadbeen in the room some time before he arrived.
"Was this the room in which you found the lamp that you took upstairs?"continued Crewe.
"Yes."
"I think you told me that there was no light in the house when youentered?"
"The place was in darkness. I found a candlestick on the hallstand. Ilit that first and after coming in here I lit the lamp." He had decidedto adhere in his statements to what Miss Maynard had told him she haddone before he arrived.
"Did you notice when you lit the lamp whether the lamp chimney was hot,warm, or quite cold?" asked Crewe.
"I cannot be certain. I think it was cold, or otherwise I should havenoticed."
"You lit the lamp before you heard the crash which startled you?"
"Yes. I lit it a few moments after I came into the room."
"Any foot-marks outside the window?" said Inspector Payne, thrustinghis head out of the open window. "Yes, there they are, quite plainly,in the ground. Made by heavy hobnailed boots. We must get plasterimpressions of those, Gillett. They are an important clue."
"I notice, inspector," said Crewe, "that there are no marks of anykind on the wall-paper beneath the window. One would expect that a mangetting in through this window would touch the wall-paper with one footwhile he was getting through the window, and as it was a wet nightthere ought to be some mark on it."
"Not necessarily," replied the inspector. "He may have jumped to thefloor without touching the wall-paper."
"But there do not seem to be any impressions inside the house of theseheavy nailed boots," returned Crewe. "Those impressions beneath thewindow show that they were made when the ground was soft from the rain.Wet muddy boots with nails in the soles ought to leave some traces onthe carpet of this room and on the staircase."
"And what about those marks we saw on the staircase? They show thatsome one had been over the staircase with a wet rag."
"To wipe out the traces of those boots?" asked Crewe.
"Why not?"
"Why did the person wearing those boots walk on the uncarpeted part ofthe stairs near the wall instead of the carpeted part?"
"Because he knew that it would be easier for him to remove the tracesof his footprints from the wood than from the carpet."
Crewe smiled at the ingenuity displayed by the inspector.
"One more doubt, inspector," he said. "Why did the man who wore thoseboots take such care to remove the traces of footprints inside thehouse and show so much indifference to the traces he left outside?"
"Because he thought the rain would wash out the footprints outside. Andso it would have done if it had rained until morning. Let us go outsideand have a good look at them."
They went out by the front door and made their way to the window,taking care to keep clear of the footprints.
"There you are, Mr. Crewe," said Inspector Payne. "There is evidencethat the man got in through the window." He pointed to a spot beneaththe window where a small piece of mortar between the brickwork had beenbroken off about fifteen inches above the ground. "And look at thoseparallel scratches on the mortar. It looks to me as if they were madeby the nails in a boot."
"Very true," assented Crewe, examining the marks closely.
"Now let us follow the footsteps to see where they start from,"continued Inspector Payne.
It was no difficult matter to follow the marks of the heavy boots. Inthe soft soil, which had formerly been part of a flower-bed, they werequite distinct. Even on the grass beyond the flower-bed the impressionswere visible, though not so distinctly. Eventually they reached thegravel-walk which skirted the front of the house, and here the traceswere lost.
"I should say that the boots which made these marks are the ordinaryheavy type worn by farm-hands and fishermen in this locality," saidCrewe.
"No doubt," answered Inspector Payne. "But, though there are somehundreds of men in this locality who wear the same type of boot,the number of pairs of boots absolutely the same are small. That isparticularly the case with these heavy nailed boots--the positions ofsome of the nails vary. A cast of three or four of the best of theseimpressions will narrow down the circle of our investigations. What doyou say, Gillett?"
"It looks to me as if it is going to be a comparatively simple affair."
Inspector Payne turned to Marsland.
"I think you said you found the door open, Mr. Marsland. Do you meanwide open or partly closed?"
"I found it wide open," replied Marsland. "I thought at the time thatit had not been properly closed and that the wind had blown it open."
"That means that the murderer got in through this window and left bythe door," said Inspector Payne to Detective Gillett. "He left it openwhen he fled."
"But what about Westaway's theory that he was in the house when Mr.Marsland came here?" asked Gillett. "What about the crash Mr. Marslandheard when the picture fell down? What about the plan of the hiddenmoney that disappeared after Mr. Marsland left?"
It was plain that Detective Gillett, who had to investigate the crime,was not in sympathy with Inspector Payne's method of solving difficultpoints by ignoring them.
Inspector Payne stroked his chin thoughtfully.
"There are a lot of interesting little points to be cleared up," hesaid cheerfully.
"Yes, there are," responded Detective Gillett, "and I've no doubt wewill find more of them as we go along."
It was obvious to Marsland that in keeping silent about Miss Maynard'spresence at Cliff Farm on the night of the storm, and the means bywhich she had entered the house, he was placing obstacles in the way ofthe elucidation of the tragedy.