Part 4

They were taken across a hall with a noble roof of hammer beams to the place of the murder. The library was panelled in oak, which at a man’s height from the ground flowered into carving. The ceiling was moulded into a hundred coats of arms, each blazoned with its right device, and the glow and colour of them, scarlet and bright blue and gold, filled the room. Black presses with vast locks stood here and there. A stool was on either side the great open hearth. By the massive table a stern fifteenth-century chair was set.

Bell gazed about him and breathed heavily. “Splendid room, sir,” he said. “Quite palatial.”

“But it’s not what I’d want after dinner myself,” Reggie murmured.

“I’ve no use for the place,” said Sir Brian. “But it suited Hugo. He would never have a thing changed. He was really a survival. Poor old Hugo.”

“He was sitting here?” Reggie touched the chair.

“So they tell me. I didn’t see him till some time after the girl found him. You’d better hear what she has to say.”

A frightened and agitated housemaid testified that his lordship had been sitting in that chair bent over the table and his head rested on it, and the left side of his head was all smashed, and on the table was a pool of his blood. She would never forget it, never. She became aware of Reggie’s deepening frown. “That’s the truth, sir,” she cried, “so help me God, it is.”

“I know, I know,” said Reggie. “No blood anywhere else? No other marks in the room?”

There hadn’t been anything. She had cleaned the room herself. And it had been awful. She hadn’t slept a night since. And so on till she was got rid of.

“Well?” said Sir Brian. “What’s the expert make of her?”

Reggie was looking at the table and fingering it. He looked up suddenly. “Oh, she’s telling the truth,” he said. “And that’s that.”

The lunch bell was ringing. Sir Brian hoped they would stay at the Hall. They did stay to lunch and talked South America, of which Sir Brian’s knowledge was extensive and peculiar. After lunch they smoked on the terrace and contemplated through the haze the Carwell acres. “Yes, it’s all Carwell land as far as you see--if you could see anything,” Sir Brian laughed. “And nothing to see at that. Flat arable. I couldn’t live in the place. I never feel awake here. But the family’s been on the ground four hundred years. They didn’t own the estate. The estate owned them. Well, I suppose one life’s as good as another if you like it. This isn’t mine. Watching Englishmen grow wheat! My God! That just suited Hugo. Poor old Hugo!”

“Had the butler anything against him, sir?” Bell ventured.

“I can’t find it. The butler was just a butler. I never saw a man more so. And Hugo, well, he didn’t know servants existed unless they didn’t answer the bell. But he was a queer fellow. No notion of anybody having rights against him. He wouldn’t let you get near him. I’ve seen that make quiet men mad.”

“Meaning anyone in particular, sir?” Bell said.

“Oh Lord, no. Speaking generally.” He looked at Bell with a shrewd smile. “Haven’t you found that in your job?” And Bell laughed. “Yes, I’m afraid I don’t help you much. Are you going to help Mark? Where is the butler?”

“Yes. Yes, we are rather wasting time, aren’t we?” Reggie stretched himself. “It’s too soothing, Sir Brian. Can we walk across the park? I hate exercise, but man must live.”

“I don’t think anyone would have to murder me if I stayed here long,” Sir Brian started up. “I’ll show you the way. We can send your car round to the village.”

Over immemorial turf they went their warm way. A herd of deer looked at them critically, and concluded they were of no importance. “Pretty creatures,” said Superintendent Bell.

“I’d as soon keep white mice,” said Sir Brian, and discoursed of the wilder deer of other lands till he discovered that Reggie was left behind.

Reggie was wandering off towards a little building away in a hollow among trees. It was low, it was of unhewn stone bonded with lines of red tile or brick, only a little above the moss-grown roof rose a thin square tower. The tiny rounded windows showed walls of great thickness and over its one door was a mighty round arch, much wrought.

“Does the old place take your fancy?” Sir Brian said.

“How did that get here?” said Reggie.

“Well, you’ve got me on my blind side,” Sir Brian confessed. “We call it the old church. I dare say it’s as old as the Hall.”

“The Hall’s a baby to it,” said Reggie angrily. “The porch is Norman. There’s Saxon work in that tower. And that tile is Roman.”

Sir Brian laughed. “What about the Greeks and the Hebrews? Give them a look in.” Reggie was not pleased with him. “Sorry, afraid these things don’t mean much to me. I don’t know how it began.”

“It may have been a shrine or a chapel over some sacred place.”

“Haven’t a notion. They say it used to be the village church. One of my revered ancestors stopped the right of way--didn’t like the people disturbing his poultry, I suppose--and built ’em a new church outside the park.”

“Priceless,” Reggie murmured.

“What, the place or my ancestors?”

“Well, both, don’t you think?”

For the rest of the way Sir Brian told strange stories of the past of the family of Carwell.

“He’s a good talker, sir,” said Superintendent Bell, when they had left him at the park gate and were in their car. “Very pleasant company. But you’ve something on your mind.”

“The chair,” Reggie mumbled. “Why was the man in his chair?”

“Lord Carwell, sir?” Bell struggled to adjust his mind. “Well, he was. That girl was telling the truth.”

“I know, I know. That’s the difficulty. You smash the side of a man’s head in. He won’t sit down to think about it.”

“Perhaps he was sitting when he was hit.”

“Then he’d be knocked over just the same.”

“I suppose the murderer might have picked him up.”

“He might. But why? Why?”

Superintendent Bell sighed heavily. “I judge we’ve some way to go, sir. And we don’t seem to get any nearer the butler.”

“Your job,” said Reggie, and again the Superintendent sighed.

That night through a drizzling rain, lanterns moved in the village churchyard. The vault in which the Carwells of a hundred and fifty years lie crumbling was opened, and out of it a coffin was borne away. One man lingered in the vault holding a lantern high. He moved from one coffin to another, and came up again to the clean air and the rain. “All present and correct,” he said. “No deception, Bell.”

Superintendent Bell coughed. Sometimes he thinks Mr. Fortune lacking in reverence.

“Division of labour,” Reggie sank into the cushions of the car and lit a pipe, “the division of labour is the great principle of civilization. Perhaps you didn’t know that? In the morning I will look at the corpse and you will look for the butler.”

“Well, sir, I don’t care for my job, but I wouldn’t have yours for a hundred pounds.”

“Yet it has a certain interest,” Reggie murmured, “for that poor devil with the death sentence on him.”

To their hotel in Southam Reggie Fortune came back on the next day rather before lunch time.

“Finished at the mortuary, sir?” said Bell. “I thought you looked happy.”

“Not happy. Only pleased with myself. A snare, Bell, a snare. Have you found the butler?”

Bell shook his head. “It’s like a fairy tale, sir. He went out on that evening, walked down the village street, and that’s the last of him they know. He might have gone to the station, he might have gone on the Southam motor-bus. They can’t swear he didn’t, but nobody saw him. They’ve searched the whole country-side and dragged the river. If you’ll tell me what to do next, I’ll be glad.”

“Sir Brian’s been asking for me, they say,” said Reggie. “I think we’ll go and call on Sir Brian.”

They took sandwiches and their motor to Carwell Hall. The new butler told them Sir Brian had driven into Southam and was not yet back. “Oh, we’ve crossed him, I suppose,” Reggie said. “We might stroll in the park till he’s back. Ah, can we get into the old church?”

The butler really couldn’t say, and remarked that he was new to the place.

“Oh, it’s no matter.” Reggie took Bell’s arm and strolled away.

They wandered down to the little old church, “Makes you feel melancholy, sir, don’t it?” Bell said. “Desolate, as you might say. As if people had got tired of believing in God.”

Reggie looked at him a moment and went into the porch and tried the worm-eaten oak door. “We might have a look at the place,” he said, and took out of his pocket a flat case like a housewife.

“Good Lord, sir, I wouldn’t do that,” Bell recoiled. “I mean to say--it’s a church after all.”

But Reggie was already picking the old lock. The door yielded and he went in. A dank and musty smell met them. The church was all but empty. Dim light fell on a shattered rood screen and stalls, and a bare stone altar. A tomb bore two cadaverous effigies. Reggie moved hither and thither prying into every corner, and came at last to a broken flight of stairs. “Oh, there’s a crypt, is there,” he muttered, and went down. “Hallo! Come on, Bell.”

Superintendent Bell, following reluctantly, found him struggling with pieces of timber, relics of stall and bench, which held a door closed. “Give me a hand, man.”

“I don’t like it, sir, and that’s the truth.”

“Nor do I,” Reggie panted, “not a bit,” and dragged the last piece away and pulled the door open. He took out a torch and flashed the light on. They looked into a place supported on low round arches. The beam of the torch moved from coffin to mouldering coffin.

“Good God,” Bell gasped, and gripped Reggie’s arm.

Reggie drew him in. They came to the body of a man which had no coffin. It lay upon its face. Reggie bent over it, touching gently the back of the neck. “I thought so,” he muttered, and turned the body over. Bell gave a stifled cry.

“Quite so, quite----” he sprang up and made a dash for the door. It was slammed in his face. He flung himself against it, and it yielded a little but held. A dull creaking and groaning told that the timbers were being set again in place. Together they charged the door and were beaten back “And that’s that, Bell,” said Reggie. He flashed his light round the crypt, and it fell again on the corpse. “You and me and the butler.”

Bell’s hand felt for him. “Mr. Fortune--Mr. Fortune--was he dead when he came here?”

“Oh Lord, yes. Sir Brian’s quite a humane man. But business is business.”

“Sir Brian?” Bell gasped.

“My dear chap,” said Reggie irritably, “don’t make conversation.” He turned his torch on the grey oak of the door. . . .

It was late in that grim afternoon before they had cut and kicked a hole in it, and Reggie’s hand came through and felt for the timbers which held it closed. Twilight was falling when, dirty and reeking, they broke out of the church and made for the Hall.

Sir Brian--the new butler could not conceal his surprise at seeing them--Sir Brian had gone out in the big car. But the butler feared there must be some mistake. He understood that Sir Brian had seen the gentlemen and was to take them with him. Sir Brian had sent the gentlemen’s car back to Southam. Sir Brian----

“Where’s your telephone?” said Reggie.

The butler was afraid the telephone was out of order. He had been trying to get----

Reggie went to the receiver. There was no answer. Still listening, he looked at the connexions. A couple of inches of wire were cut out. Half an hour later two breathless men arrived at the village post office and shut themselves into the telephone call-box.

On the next day Lomas called at Mr. Fortune’s house in Wimpole Street and was told that Mr. Fortune was in his bath. A parlourmaid with downcast eyes announced to him a few minutes later that if he would go up Mr. Fortune would be very glad to see him.

“Pardon me,” said the pink cherubic face from the water. “I am not clean. I think I shall never be clean again.”

“You look like a prawn,” said Lomas.

“That’s your unscientific mind. Have you got him?”

Lomas shook his head. “He has been seen in ten places at once. They have arrested a blameless bookmaker at Hull and an Irish cattle-dealer at Birkenhead. As usual. But we ought to have him in time.”

“My fault entirely. He is an able fellow. I have underrated these business men, Lomas. My error. Occasionally one has a head. He has.”

“These madmen often have.”

Reggie wallowed in the water. “Mad? He’s as sane as I am. He’s been badly educated, that’s all. That’s the worst of business men. They’re so ignorant. Just look at it. He killed Hugo by a knife thrust in the vertebrae at the base of the skull. It’s a South American fashion, probably indigenous. When I found that wound in the body I was sure of the murderer. I had a notion before from the way he spoke about Hugo and the estate. Probably Hugo was bent over the table and the blow was struck without his knowledge. He would be dead in a moment. But Sir Brian saw that wouldn’t do. Too uncommon a murder in England. So he smashed in the skull to make it look like an ordinary crime of violence. Thus ignorance is bliss. He never thought the death wasn’t the right kind of death for that. Also it didn’t occur to him that a man who is hit on the head hard is knocked down. He don’t lay his head on the table to be hammered same like Hugo. I don’t fancy Brian meant Mark to be hanged. Possibly he was going to manufacture evidence of burglary when he was interrupted by the butler. Anyhow the butler knew too much and had to be bought off. But I suppose the butler wouldn’t stand Mark being hanged. When he found the trial was going dead against Mark he threatened. So he had to be killed too. Say by appointment in the park. Same injury in his body--a stab through the cervical vertebrae. And the corpse was neatly disposed of in the crypt.”

“What in the world put you on to the crypt?”

“Well, Sir Brian was so anxious not to be interested in the place. And the place was so mighty convenient. And the butler had to be somewhere. Pure reasoning, Lomas, old thing. This is a very rational case all through.”

“Rational! Will you tell me why Sir Brian came to stir us up about the butler and insisted Mark was innocent?”

“I told you he was an able man. He saw it would have looked very fishy if he didn’t. Acting head of the family--he had to act. And also I fancy he liked Mark. If he could get the boy off, he would rather do it than not. And who could suspect the worthy fellow who was so straight and decent? All very rational.”

“Very,” said Lomas. “Especially the first murder. Why do you suppose he wanted to kill Hugo?”

“Well, you’d better look at his papers. He talked about Hugo as if he had a grudge against the way Hugo ran the estate. I wonder if he wanted to develop it--try for minerals perhaps--it’s on the edge of the South Midland coal-field--and Hugo wouldn’t have it.”

“Good Gad!” Lomas said. “You’re an ingenious fellow, Fortune. He had proposed to Hugo to try for coal, and Hugo turned it down.”

Reggie emerged from the bath. “There you have it. He knew if Hugo was out of the way he could do what he wanted. If Mark or the old parson had the place, he could manage them. Very rational crime.”

“Rational! Murder your cousin to make a coal mine!”

“Business men and business methods. Run away and catch him, Lomas, and hang him to encourage the others.”

But in fact Lomas did not catch him. Some years afterwards Mrs. Fortune found her husband on the veranda of an hotel in Italy staring at a Spanish paper. “Don’t dream, child,” she said. “Run and dress.”

“I’m seeing ghosts, Joan,” said Mr. Fortune.

She looked over his shoulder. “Who is San Jacinto?”

“The last new South American republic. Here’s His Excellency the President. _Né_ Brian Carwell. Observe the smile.”

CASE III

THE YOUNG DOCTOR

MR. REGINALD FORTUNE came into Superintendent Bell’s room at Scotland Yard. “That was chocolate cream,” he said placidly. “You’d better arrest the aunt.”

The superintendent took up his telephone receiver and spoke into it fervently. You remember the unpleasant affair of the aunt and her niece’s child.

“‘Oh, fat white woman that nobody loves,’” Mr. Fortune murmured. “Well, well. She’s not wholesome, you know. Some little error in the ductless glands.”

“She’s for it,” said Superintendent Bell with grim satisfaction. “That’s a wicked woman, Mr. Fortune, and as clever as sin.”

“Yes, quite unhealthy. A dull case, Bell.” He yawned and wandered about the room and came to a stand by the desk. “What are these curios?” He pointed to a skeleton key and a pad of cotton-wool.

“The evidence in that young doctor’s case, the Bloomsbury diamond burglary. Not worth keeping, I suppose. That was a bad business though. I was sorry for the lad. But it was a straight case. Did you read it, sir? Young fellow making a start, hard fight for it, on his beam ends, gets to know a man with a lot of valuable stuff in his rooms--and steals it. An impudent robbery too--but that’s the usual way when a decent fellow goes wrong, he loses his head. Lead us not into temptation. That’s the moral of Dr. Wilton’s case. He’s only thirty, he’s a clever fellow, he ought to have done well, he’s ruined himself--and if he’d had a hundred pounds in the bank he’d have run straight enough.”

“A lot of crime is a natural product.” Mr. Fortune repeated a favourite maxim of his. “I didn’t read it, Bell. How did it go?” He sat down and lit a cigar.

“The trial was in this morning’s papers, sir. Only a small affair. Dr. Horace Wilton came out of the army with a gratuity and a little money of his own. He set up as a specialist. You know the usual thing. His plate up with three or four others on a Harley Street house where he had a little consulting-room to himself. He lived in a Bloomsbury flat. Well, the patients didn’t come. He wasn’t known, he had no friends, and his money began to run out.”

“Poor devil,” Reggie nodded.

“A Dutch diamond merchant called Witt came to live in the flats. Wilton got to know him, prescribed for a cold or something. Witt took to the doctor, made friends, heard about his troubles, offered to get him a berth in the Dutch colonies, gave him two or three rough diamonds--a delicate way of giving him money, I suppose. Then one morning the valet--service flats they are--coming into Witt’s rooms found him heavily asleep. He’d been chloroformed. There was that pad on his pillow.”

Reggie took up the box in which the cotton-wool and the skeleton key lay.

“Don’t shake it,” said the superintendent. “Do you see those scraps of tobacco? That’s important. The bureau in which Witt kept the diamonds he had with him had been forced open and the diamonds were gone. Witt sent for the police. Now you see that tobacco on the cotton-wool. The inspector spotted that. The cotton-wool must have been handled by a man who smoked that tobacco. Most likely carried it in the same pocket. Unusual stuff, isn’t it? Well, the inspector remarked on that to Witt. Witt was horrified. You see it’s South African tobacco. And he knew Wilton used the stuff. There was some spilt in the room, too.”

“Have you got that?” said Reggie.

“No. I don’t think it was produced. But our man saw it, and he’s reliable. Then a Dutch journalist dropped in. He was just over in England. He’d called on Witt late the night before and couldn’t make him hear. That surprised him because as he came up he’d seen some one coming out of Witt’s rooms, some one who went into Wilton’s. That was enough to act on. Wilton was arrested and his flat was searched. Tucked away in the window seat they found the diamonds and that skeleton key. He stood his trial yesterday, he made no defence but to swear that he knew nothing about it. The evidence was clear. Witt--he must be a soft-hearted old fellow--Witt tried to let him down as gently as he could and asked the judge to go easy with him. Old Borrowdale gave him five years. A stiff sentence, but the case itself would break the man’s career, poor chap. A bad business, sir, isn’t it? Impudent, ungrateful piece of thieving--but he might have been honest enough if he could have made a living at his job.”

Mr. Fortune did not answer. He was looking at the key. He set it down, took up a magnifying glass, carried the box to the light and frowned over the cotton-wool.

“What’s the matter with it, sir?”

“The key,” Mr. Fortune mumbled, still studying the cotton-wool. “Why was the key made in Germany? Why does Dr. Horace Wilton of Harley Street and Bloomsbury use a skeleton key that was made in Solingen?”

“Well, sir, you can’t tell how a man comes by that sort of stuff. It goes about from hand to hand, don’t it?”

“Yes. Whose hand?” said Reggie. “And why does your local expert swear this is South African tobacco? There is a likeness. But this is that awful stuff they sell in Germany and call Rauch-tabak.”

Bell was startled. “That’s awkward, sir. German too, eh?”

“Well, you can buy Solingen goods outside Germany. And German tobacco, too. Say in Holland.”

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, sir?”

“Oh, I think the tobacco was a little error. I think the tobacco ought not to have been there. But it was rather unlucky for Dr. Wilton your bright expert took it for his brand.”

The superintendent looked uncomfortable. “Yes, sir, that’s the sort of thing we don’t want to happen. But after all the case didn’t turn on the tobacco. There was the man who swore he saw Wilton leaving Witt’s flat and the finding of the diamonds in Wilton’s room. Without the tobacco the evidence was clear.”

“I know. I said the tobacco was superfluous. That’s why it interests me. Superfluous, not to say awkward. We know Wilton don’t use Rauch-tabak. Yet there is Rauch-tabak on the chloroformed pad. Which suggests that some one else was on the job. Some fellow with a taste for German flavours. The sort of fellow who’d use a German key.”

“There’s not a sign of Wilton’s having an accomplice,” said Bell heavily. “But of course it’s possible.”

Mr. Fortune looked at him with affection. “Dear Bell,” he said, “you must find the world very wonderful. No, I wouldn’t look for an accomplice. But I think you might look for the diamond merchant and the journalist. I should like to ask them who smokes Rauch-tabak.”

“There must be an investigation,” Bell sighed. “I see that, sir. But I can’t see that it will do the poor fellow any good. And it’s bad for the department.”

Reggie smiled upon him. “Historic picture of an official struggling with his humanity,” he said. “Poor old Bell!”

At the end of that week Mr. Fortune was summoned to Scotland Yard. He found the chief of the Criminal Investigation Department in conference with Eddis, a man of law from the Home Office.

“Hallo! Life is real, life is earnest, isn’t it, Lomas?” he smiled.

The Hon. Sidney Lomas put up an eyeglass and scowled at him. “You know, you’re not a man of science, Fortune. You’re an agitator. You ought to be bound over to keep the peace.”

“I should call him a departmental nuisance,” said Eddis gloomily.

“In returnin’ thanks (one of your larger cigars would do me no harm, Lomas) I would only ask, where does it hurt you?”

“The Wilton case was a very satisfactory case till you meddled,” said Eddis. “Also it was a _chose jugée_.”

“And now it’s unjudged? How good for you!” Reggie chuckled. “How stimulating!”

“Now,” said Lomas severely, “it’s insane. It’s a nightmare.”

“Yes. Yes, I dare say that’s what Dr. Wilton thinks,” said Reggie gravely. “Well, how far have you got?”

“You were right about the tobacco, confound you. And the key. Both of German birth. And will you kindly tell me what that means?”

“My honourable friend’s question,” said Reggie, “should be addressed to Mynheer Witt or Mynheer Gerard. You know, this is like Alice in Wonderland. Sentence first, trial afterwards. Why didn’t you look into the case before you tried it? Then you could have asked Witt and Gerard these little questions when you had them in the box. And very interesting too.”