Part 3

“As you say,” Reggie agreed. “Yes. Public Prosecutor on it. Old Brunker leading for the Crown. Riding pretty hard, too. The man Mark is for it, I fear, Lomas. They do these things quite neatly without us. It’s all very disheartening.”

“Mark Carwell? A harum-scarum young ruffian he always was.”

“Yes. Have you noticed these little things mean much? I haven’t.”

“What’s the case?”

“The second housemaid found Lord Carwell sitting in the library with his head smashed. He was dead. The doctor came up in half an hour, found him cold, and swears he had been dead five or six hours. Cause of death--brain injury from the blow given by some heavy, blunt instrument. No one in the house had heard a sound. No sign of burglary, no weapon. There was a small house-party, the man Mark, the girl Carwell was engaged to, Lady Violet Barclay and her papa and mamma, and Sir Brian Carwell--that’s the contractor, some sort of distant cousin. Mark was left with Lord Carwell when the rest of them went to bed. Lady Violet and papa and mamma say they heard a noisy quarrel. Violet says Carwell had told her before that Mark was writing to him for money to get married on, and Carwell didn’t approve of the girl.”

“I don’t fancy Carwell would approve of the kind of girl Mark would want to marry.”

“Yes, that’s what the fair Violet implies. She seems to be a good hater. She did her little best to hang Mark.”

“Why, if he killed her man, can you wonder?”

“Oh, I don’t wonder. But I wouldn’t like to get in her way myself. Not really a nice girl. She swore Mark had been threatening Carwell, and Carwell was afraid of him. The prosecution put in a letter of Mark’s which talked wild about doing something vague and desperate if Carwell didn’t stump up.”

“Did Mark go into the box?”

“Yes. That was his error. I’m afraid he isn’t respectable, Lomas. He showed no seemly grief. He made it quite clear that he had no use for Hugo, Lord Carwell. He rather suggested that Hugo had lived to spite him, and got killed to spite him. He admitted all Lady Violet’s evidence and underlined it. He said Hugo had been more against him than ever since she came into the family. He owned to the quarrel of Hugo’s last night. Only he swore that he left the man alive.”

“Well, he did his best to hang himself.”

“As you say. A bold, bad fellow. That’s all, except that cousin Mark had a big stick, a loaded stick with a knob head, and he took it down to Carwell Hall.”

“What’s the verdict?”

“To be continued in our next. The judge was going to sum up in the morning. In the paper we haven’t got.”

Lomas lay back and watched the grey sea rise into sight as the boat rolled to starboard. “What do you make of it, Fortune?”

“There’s the rudiments of a case,” said Reggie. “The Carwell estate is entailed. Mark is the heir. He didn’t love the man. The man was going to marry and that would wash out Mark. Mark was the last man with him, unless there is some hard lying. They had a row about money and girls, which are always infuriating, and Mark had a weapon handy which might have killed him. And nobody else had any motive, there’s no evidence of anybody else in the business. Yes, the rudiments of a case.”

“I don’t see the rudiments of a defence.”

“The defence is that Mark says that he didn’t.”

“Quite, quite,” Lomas nodded. “It’s not the strongest case in the world, but I have had convictions on worse. The jury will go by what they made of Mark in the box.”

“And hang him for his face.” Reggie turned over a paper and held out the portrait of a bull-necked, square-headed young man.

“I wouldn’t say they’d be wrong,” Lomas said. “Who’s the judge? Maine? He’ll keep ’em straight.”

“I wonder. What is straight, Lomas?”

“My dear fellow, it all turns on the way this lad gave his evidence, and that you can’t tell from a report.”

“He don’t conciliate me,” Reggie murmured. “Yet I like evidence, Lomas.”

“Why, this is adequate, if it’s true. And Mark didn’t challenge it.”

“I know. Adequate is the word. Just enough and nothing more. That’s unusual, Lomas. Well, well. What about tea?”

They picked their way over some prostrate bodies to the saloon and again gave up the Carwell case.

But when the boat had made her slow way through the clatter of the Tyne, Reggie was quick to intercept the first customs officer on board. “I say, what was the result of that murder trial?”

The man laughed. “Thought you wanted the 3.30 winner, you were so keen, sir. Oh, Mark Carwell’s guilty, of course. His mother’s white-haired boy, he is. Not ’alf.”

“The voice of the people,” said Lomas, in Reggie’s ear.

On the way to London they read the judge’s summing up, an oration lucid and fair but relentless.

“He had no doubt,” Reggie said.

“And a good judge too,” Lomas tossed the paper aside. “Thank heaven they got it out of the way without bothering me.”

“You are an almost perfect official,” said Reggie with reverence.

In the morning when Reggie came down to his breakfast in London he was told that some one had rung up to know if he was back in England yet. He was only half-way through his omelet when the name of Miss Joan Amber was brought to him.

Every one who likes to see a beautiful actress act, and many who don’t care whether she can act or not, know what Miss Amber looks like, that large young woman with the golden eyes whom Reggie hurried to welcome. He held her hand rather a long while. “The world is very good to-day,” he said, and inspected her. “You don’t need a holiday, Miss Amber.”

“You’ve had too much, Mr. Fortune.”

“Have you been kind enough to want me?”

“I really meant that you looked----” she made a large gesture.

“No, no--not fat,” Reggie protested. “Only genial. I expand in your presence.”

“Well--round,” said Miss Amber. “And my presence must be very bad for you.”

“No, not bad for me--only crushing.”

“Well, I did sometimes notice you were away. And I want you now. For a friend of mine. Will you help her?”

“When did I ever say No to you?”

“Bless you,” said Miss Amber. “It’s the Carwell case.”

“Oh, my prophetic soul,” Reggie groaned. “But what in wonder have you to do with the Carwell case?”

“I know Nan Nest. She’s the girl Mark Carwell is going to marry.”

“Do you mind if you sit down?” said Reggie, and wandered away to the window. “You’re disturbing to the intellect, Miss Amber. Let us be calm. You shouldn’t talk about people marrying people and look like that.” Miss Amber smiled at his back. She has confessed to moments in which she would like to be Reggie Fortune’s mother. “Yes. Well now, does Miss Amber happen to know the man Mark?”

“I’ve met him. He’s not a bad fellow. A first-class fighting-subaltern. That sort of thing.”

Reggie nodded. “That’s his public form too.”

“Oh, Mr. Fortune, he’s absolutely straight. Not a very wise youth, of course. You know, I could imagine him killing his cousin, but what I can’t imagine is that he would ever say he didn’t if he did.”

“Yes. There weren’t any women on the jury?”

“Don’t sneer.”

“I never do when you’re listening. That was a scientific statement. Now, what’s Miss Nest like?”

“Like a jolly schoolboy. Or she was, poor child. Oh, they would have been splendidly happy, if that tiresome man had set Mark up somewhere in the country instead of getting himself murdered.”

Reggie smiled sadly. “Don’t say that to anyone but me. Or let her say it. Why did the tiresome man object to her? I suppose it’s true that he did?”

“Oh heavens, yes. Because she’s on the stage. She plays little parts, you know, flappers and such. She’s quite good as herself. She can’t act.”

“What was the late Carwell? What sort of fellow? That didn’t come out at the trial.”

“A priceless prig, Mark says. I suppose he was the last survivor of our ancient aristocracy. Poor Mark!”

“I wonder,” Reggie murmured.

“What?”

“Well”--he spread out his hands--“everything. You haven’t exactly cleared it up, have you?”

“Mark told Nan he didn’t do it,” she said quietly, and Reggie looked into her eyes. “Oh, can’t you see? That’s to trust to. That’s sure.” Reggie turned away. “You will help her?” the low voice came again.

And at last, “My dear, I daren’t say so,” Reggie said. “You mustn’t tell her to hope anything. I’ll go over all the case. But the man is condemned.”

“Why, but there’s a court of appeal.”

“Only for something new. And I don’t see it.”

“Mark didn’t kill him!” she cried.

Reggie spread out his hands. “That’s faith.”

“Mr. Fortune! When I said I had come about the Carwell case, you said, ‘Oh, my prophetic soul!’ You don’t believe the evidence, then. You never did. You always thought there was something they didn’t find out.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know,” Reggie said slowly. “That’s the last word now. And it may be the last word in the end.”

“You!” she said, and held out her hand.

When she was gone, Reggie stood looking at the place where she had sat. “God help us,” he said, rare words on his lips. And the place he went to was Scotland Yard.

Lomas was occupied with other sublime officials. So Superintendent Bell reported. He had also been telephoning for Mr. Fortune. Mr. Fortune was admitted and found himself before a large red truculent man who glared. “Hallo, Finch. Is this a council of war?” said Mr. Fortune; for at that date Mr. Montague Finchampstead was the Public Prosecutor.

“Lomas tells me”--Finchampstead has a bullying manner--“you’ve formed an opinion on the evidence in the Carwell case.”

“Then he knows more than I do. The evidence was all right--what there was of it.”

“The chain is complete,” Finchampstead announced.

“Yes. Yes. If you don’t pull it hard.”

“Well, no one did pull it.”

“That’s what I’m pointing out, Finch,” said Reggie sweetly. “Why are you so cross?”

“The trouble is, Fortune, the Carwell butler’s bolted,” Lomas said.

Reggie walked across the room and took one of Lomas’s cigars and lit it, and made himself comfortable in his chair. “That’s a new fact,” he said softly.

“Nonsense,” Finchampstead cried. “It’s irrelevant. It doesn’t affect the issue. The verdict stands.”

“I noticed you didn’t call the butler at the trial,” Reggie murmured.

“Why the devil should we? He knew nothing.”

“Yet he bolts.”

Lomas smiled. “The unfortunate thing is, Fortune, he bolted before the trial was over. At the end of the second day the local police were told that he had vanished. The news was passed on to Finchampstead. But the defence was not informed. And it didn’t come out at the trial.”

“Well, well. I thought you were riding rather hard, Finch. You were.”

“Rubbish. The case was perfectly clear. The disappearance of the butler doesn’t affect it--if he has disappeared. The fellow may very well have gone off on some affair of his own, and turn up again in a day or two. And if he doesn’t, it’s nothing to the purpose. The butler was known to have a kindness for Mark Carwell. If we never hear of him again I shall conclude that he had a hand in the murder, and when he saw the case was going against Mark thought he had better vanish.”

“Theory number two,” Reggie murmured.

“What do you mean?”

“Your first was that the butler knew nothing. Your second is that he knows too much. Better choose which leg you’ll stand on in the Court of Appeal.”

Finchampstead glared.

“In the meantime, Finch, we’ll try to find the butler for you,” said Lomas cheerfully.

“And I think I’ll have a look at the evidence,” Reggie murmured.

“There is no flaw in the evidence,” Finchampstead boomed.

“Well, not till you look at it.”

Finchampstead with some explosions of disgust removed himself.

“Zeal, all zeal,” said Reggie sadly. “Well-meaning man. Only one idea at a time. And sometimes a wrong un.”

“He’s a lawyer by nature,” Lomas apologized. “You always rub him up the wrong way. He don’t like the scientific mind. What?” Bell had come in to give him a visiting card. He read out, “Sir Brian Carwell.” He looked at Reggie. “Now which side is he on?”

“One moment. Who exactly is he? Some sort of remote cousin?”

“Yes. He comes of a younger branch. People say the brains of the Carwell’s went to them. His father was the engineer, old Ralph Carwell. This man’s an engineering contractor. He made his pile over South American railways.”

“You wouldn’t say he was passionately interested in the late Lord Carwell or Cousin Mark.”

There came in a lean man with an air of decision and authority, but older than his resilient vigour suggested, for his hair was much sprinkled with grey, and in his brown face, about the eyes and mouth, the wrinkles were many. He was exact with the formalities of introduction and greeting, but much at his ease, and then, “I had better explain who I am, Mr. Lomas.”

“Oh, we’ve heard of Sir Brian Carwell.”

“Thanks. But I dare say you don’t know my private affairs. I’m some sort of fifteenth cousin of these two unfortunate young fellows. And just now I happen to be the acting head of the family. I’m not the next heir, of course. That’s old Canon Carwell. But I was on the spot when this thing happened. After his arrest Mark asked me to take charge for him, and the Canon wished me to act. That’s my position. Well, I carried on to keep things as they were at the Hall and on the estate. Several of the servants want to quit, of course, but they haven’t gone yet. The butler was a special case. He told me he had given Hugo notice some time before. I could find no record, but it was possible enough, and as he only wanted to retire and settle down in the neighbourhood, I made no difficulty. So he set himself up in lodgings in the village. He was looking about for a house, he told me. I suppose he had done pretty well. He had been in service at the Hall thirty or forty years, poor devil. What a life! He knew Hugo and Mark much better than I do, had known ’em all their young lives. He knew all the family affairs inside and out. One night the people where he was lodging went round to the police to say he’d gone out and not come back. He hasn’t come back yet.”

“And what do you conclude, Sir Brian?”

“I’ll be damned if I know what I conclude. That’s your business, isn’t it?”

“Not without some facts,” said Lomas. “When did he leave the Hall?”

“After Mark was arrested. May 13. And he disappeared on the evening of the second day of the trial.”

“That would be when it looked certain that Mark would be found guilty. Why did he wait till then?”

Sir Brian laughed. “If I knew that, I suppose I shouldn’t be here. I’m asking you to find him.”

“Quite, quite,” Lomas agreed. “The local police knew of his disappearance at once?”

“I said so. I wish I had known as soon. The police didn’t bother to mention it at the trial. It might have made some difference to the verdict, Mr. Lomas.”

“That’s matter of opinion, of course,” said Lomas. “I wasn’t in England myself. I needn’t tell you that it’s open to the defence to appeal against the conviction.”

“Is it?” Sir Brian’s shadowed eyes grew smaller. “You don’t know Mark, Mr. Lomas. If I were to tell you Mark refuses to make an appeal on this ground because it would be putting the murder on the butler, what would you say?”

“Good Gad!” was what Lomas did say. He lay back and put up his eyeglass and looked from Sir Brian to Reggie and back again. “You mean Mark admits he is guilty?”

“Guilty be damned,” said Sir Brian. “No, sir, I mean Mark liked the wretched fellow and won’t hear of anything against him. Mark’s a fool. But that’s not a reason for hanging him. I say you got your conviction by suppressing evidence. It’s up to you to review the case.”

“Still, Lord Carwell was killed,” said Lomas gently, “and somebody killed him. Who was it?”

“Not Mark. He hasn’t got it in him, I suppose he never hit a fellow who couldn’t hit back in his life.”

“But surely,” Lomas purred, “if there was a quarrel, Lord Carwell might----”

“Hugo was a weed,” Sir Brian pronounced. “Mark never touched him, my friend.”

“Yes, yes, very natural you should think so,” Lomas shifted his papers. “Of course you won’t expect me to say anything, Sir Brian. And what exactly is it you want me to do?”

Sir Brian laughed. “My dear sir, it’s not for me to tell you your duty. I put it to you that a man has disappeared, and that his disappearance makes hay of the case on which the Crown convicted a cousin of mine of murder. What you do about it is your affair.”

“You may rely upon it, Sir Brian,” said Lomas in his most official manner, “the affair will be thoroughly investigated.”

“I expected no less, Mr. Lomas.” And Sir Brian ceremoniously but briskly took his leave.

After which, “Good Gad!” said Lomas again, and stared at Reggie Fortune.

“Nice restful companion, isn’t he? Yes. The sort of fellow that has made Old England great.”

“Oh, I don’t mind him. He could be dealt with. But he’s right, confound him. The case is a most unholy mess.”

“Well, well,” said Reggie placidly. “You must rub it out, dear, and do it again.”

“If everybody had tried to muddle it they couldn’t have done worse.”

Reggie stared at him. “Yes. Yes, you have your moments, Lomas,” he said.

“Suppose the butler did the murder. Why in the world should he wait to run away till Mark was certain to be found guilty?”

“And suppose he didn’t, why did he run away at all? You can make up quite a lot of riddles in this business. Why should anyone but Mark do it? Why is Mark so mighty tender of the butler’s reputation? Why is anything?”

“Yes, it’s all crazy--except Sir Brian. He’s reasonable enough, confound him.”

“Yes. Yes, these rational men are a nuisance to the police. Well, well, begin again at the beginning.”

“I wish I knew where it did begin.”

“My dear fellow! Are we down-hearted? I’ll have a look at the medical evidence. You go over Carwell Hall and the butler’s digs with a small tooth comb.”

But the first thing which Mr. Fortune did was to send a note to Miss Amber.

MY DEAR CHILD,--

Mark can appeal. The ground for it is the disappearance of the Carwell butler--and a good ground.

But he must appeal. Tell Miss Nest.

R. F.

Two days afterwards he went again to Scotland Yard summoned to a conference of the powers. The public prosecutor’s large and florid face had no welcome for him. “Any more new facts, Finch?” he said cheerfully.

“Mark Carwell has entered an appeal,” Mr. Finchampstead boomed. “On the ground of the butler’s disappearance.”

“Fancy that!” Reggie murmured, and lit a cigar. “Sir Brian doesn’t seem to have been very well informed, Lomas.”

“The boy’s come to his senses, I suppose. But we haven’t found the butler. He left no papers behind him. All he did leave was his clothes and about a hundred pounds in small notes.”

“So he didn’t take his ready money. That’s interesting.”

“Well, not all of it. He left another hundred or so in the savings bank, and some small investments in building societies and so forth--a matter of five hundred. Either he didn’t mean to vanish, or he was in the deuce of a hurry to go.”

“Yes. Yes, there’s another little point. Five or six hundred isn’t much to retire on. Why was he in such a hurry to retire?”

“He may have had more than we can trace, of course. He may have gone off with some Carwell property. But there is no evidence of anything being stolen.”

“The plain fact is,” Finchampstead boomed, “you have found out nothing but that he’s gone. We knew that before.”

“And it’s a pity you kept it dark,” said Lomas acidly. “You wouldn’t have had an appeal to fight.”

“The case against Mark Carwell is intrinsically as strong as ever,” Finchampstead pronounced. “There is no reason whatever to suspect the butler, he had no motive for murder, he gained nothing by it, his disappearance is most naturally accounted for by an accident.”

“Yes, you’ll have to say all that in the Court of Appeal. I don’t think it will cut much ice.”

“I am free to admit that his disappearance is an awkward complication in the case,” Finchampstead’s oratory rolled on. “But surely, Lomas, you have formed some theory in explanation?”

Lomas shook his head.

“We’ve had too much theory, Finch,” said Reggie cheerfully. “Let’s try some facts. I want the body exhumed.”

The eyes of Mr. Finchampstead goggled. His large jaw fell.

“Good Gad, you don’t doubt he’s dead?” Lomas cried.

“Oh, he’ll be dead all right. I want to know how he died.”

“Are you serious?” Finchampstead mourned. “Really, Fortune, this is not a matter for frivolity. The poor fellow was found dead with one side of his head beaten in. There can be no dispute how he died. I presume you have taken the trouble to read the medical evidence.”

“I have. That’s what worries me. I’ve seen the doctors you called. Dear old things.”

“Very sound men. And of the highest standing,” Finchampstead rebuked him.

“As you say. They know a fractured skull when they see it. They would see everything they looked for. But they didn’t look for what they didn’t see.”

“May I ask what you mean?”

“Any other cause of death.”

“The cause was perfectly plain. There was nothing else to look for.”

“Yes. Yes,” Reggie lay back and blew smoke. “That’s the sort of reasoning that got you this verdict. Look here, Finch. That smashed head would have killed him all right, but it shouldn’t have killed him so quick. He ought to have lingered unconscious a long while. And he had been dead hours when they found him. We have to begin again from the beginning. I want an order for exhumation.”

“Better ask for a subpoena for his soul.”

“That’s rather good, Finch,” Reggie smiled. “You’re beginning to take an interest in the case.”

“If you could take the evidence of the murdered,” said Lomas, “a good many convictions for murder would look rather queer.”

Mr. Finchampstead was horrified. “I conceive,” he announced with dignity, “that a trial in an English court is a practically perfect means of discovering the truth.”

Reverently then they watched him go. And when he was gone, “He’s a wonderful man,” said Reggie. “He really believes that.”

The next morning saw Mr. Fortune, escorted by Superintendent Bell, arrive at Carwell Hall. It stands in what Mr. Fortune called a sluggish country, a country of large rolling fields and slow rivers. The air was heavy and blurred all colour and form. Mr. Fortune arrived at Carwell Hall feeling as if he had eaten too much, a sensation rare in him, which he resented. He was hardly propitiated by the house, though others have rejoiced in it. It was built under the Tudors out of the spoils and, they say, with the stones of an abbey. Though some eighteenth-century ruffian played tricks with it, its mellow walls still speak of an older, more venturous world. It is a place of studied charm, gracious and smiling, but in its elaboration of form and ornament offering a thousand things to look at, denies itself as a whole, evasive and strange.

Reggie got out of the car and stood back to survey it. “Something of everything, isn’t it, Bell? Like a Shakespeare play. Just the place to have a murder in one room with a children’s party in the next, and a nice girl making love on the stairs, and father going mad in the attics.”

“I rather like Shakespeare myself, sir,” said Superintendent Bell,

“You’re so tolerant,” said Reggie, and went in.

A new butler said that Sir Brian was expecting them. Sir Brian was brusquely civil. He was very glad to find that the case was being reopened. The whole place was at their orders. Anything he could do----

“I thought I might just look round,” Reggie said. “We are rather after the fair, though.” He did not think it necessary to tell Sir Brian that Lord Carwell’s body would be dug up that night.