Part 24

"I always had a great predilection for that mystery," he said _à propos_ of nothing at all. "It still fascinates me."

"What mystery?" I asked; but as usual he took no notice of my question.

"It was more romantic than the common crimes of to-day; in fact, I don't know if you will agree with me, but to me it has quite an eighteenth-century atmosphere about it."

"If you were to tell me to what particular crime you refer," I said coldly, "I might tell you whether I agree with you or not."

He looked at me as if he thought me an idiot, then he rejoined dryly:

"You don't mean to say that you have never thought of the Moorland Tragedy!"

"Yes," I said, "often!"

"And don't you think that the story is as romantic as any you have read in fiction recently?"

"Yes, I do think that the story is romantic, but only because of its _mise en scène_. The same thing might have occurred in a London slum, and then it would have been merely sordid. Of course, it is all very mysterious, and I, for one, have often wondered what has become of that Italian--I forget his name."

"Antonio Vissio. A queer creature, wasn't he? And we can well imagine with what suspicion he was regarded by the yokels in the neighbouring villages. Yorkshire yokels! Just think of them in connection with an exotic creature like Vissio. He had a curious history, too. His people owned a little farm somewhere in the mountains near Santa Catarina in Liguria, and during the war an English intelligence officer--Captain Arnott--lodged with them for a time. They were, it seems, extraordinarily kind to him. The family consisted of a widow, two daughters, and the son, Antonio. As he was the only son of a widow, he was, of course, exempt from military service, and helped his mother to look after the farm. His passion, however--and one, by the way, which is very common to Italian peasants--was shooting. There is very little game in that part of Italy, and it means long tramps before you can get as much as a rabbit or a partridge; but there was nothing that Antonio loved more than those tramps with a gun and a dog, and when Captain Arnott had leisure, the two of them would go off together at daybreak and never return till late at night.

"Some time in 1917 Captain Arnott was transferred to another front. He got his majority the following year, and after the war he retired with the rank of Lieut.-Colonel. He hadn't seen the Vissio family for some time, but he always retained the happiest recollections of their kindness to him, and of Antonio's pleasant companionship. It was not to be wondered at, therefore, that when, in 1919, that terrible explosion occurred at the fort of Santa Catarina, which was only distant a quarter of a mile from the Vissios' farm, Colonel Arnott should at once think of his friends, and, as he happened to be at Genoa on business at the time, he motored over to Santa Catarina to see if he could ascertain anything of their fate. He found the village a complete devastation, the isolated farms for miles around nothing but masses of wreckage. I don't know how many people--men, women, and children--had been killed, there were over two hundred injured, and those who had escaped were herding together amongst the ruins of their homes. It was only by dint of perseverance and the exercise of an iron will that Captain Arnott succeeded at last in finding Antonio Vissio. There was nothing left of the farm but dust and ashes. The mother and one of the girls had been killed by the falling in of the roof, and the younger daughter was being taken care of by some sisters in a neighbouring convent which had escaped total destruction.

"Antonio was left in the world all alone, homeless, moneyless; Italy is not like England, where at times of disaster money comes pouring at once out of the pockets of the much-abused capitalists to help the unfortunate. There was no money poured out to help poor Antonio and his kindred.

"Colonel Arnott was deeply moved at sight of the man's loneliness. He worked hard to try and get him a job in England, right away from the scenes of the disaster that must perpetually have awakened bitter memories. Finally he succeeded. A friend of his, Lord Crookhaven, who owned considerable property in the North Riding, agreed to take Vissio as assistant to one of his gamekeepers, a fellow named William Topcoat. Of course this was an ideal life for Antonio. He could indulge his passion for shooting to his heart's content, and, incidentally, he would learn something of the science of preserving, and of the game laws as they exist in all the sporting countries.

"I don't suppose that Antonio ever realised quite how unpopular he was from the first in his new surroundings. The Yorkshire yokels looked upon him as a dago, and the fact that he had not fought in the war did not help matters. During the first six months he did not speak a word of English, and even after he had begun to pick up a sentence or two, he always remained unsociable. To begin with, he didn't drink: he hated beer and said so; he didn't understand cricket, and was bored with football. He didn't bet, and he was frightened of horses. All that he cared for was his gun; but he went about his work not only conscientiously, but intelligently, took great interest in the rearing of young birds, and was particularly successful with them.

"After he had been in England a year he fell madly in love with Winnie Gooden. And that is how the tragedy began.

§2

"An Italian peasant's idea of love is altogether different to that of an English yokel. The latter will begin by keeping company with his sweetheart: he will walk out with her in the twilight, and sit beside her on the stile, chewing the end of a straw and timidly holding her hand. Kisses are exchanged, and sighs, and usually no end of jokes and chaff. On the whole the English yokel is a cheerful lover. Not so the Italian. With him love is the serious drama of life; he is always prepared for it to turn to tragedy. His love is overwhelming, tempestuous. With one arm he fondles his sweetheart, but the other hand is behind his back, grasping a knife.

"So it was with Antonio Vissio. Winnie Gooden was the daughter of one of the gardeners at Markthwaite Hall, Lord Crookhaven's residence. She was remarkably pretty, and I suppose that she was attracted by the silent, rather sullen Italian, who, by the way, was extraordinarily good-looking. Dark eyes, a soft creamy skin, quantities of wavy hair; every one admitted that the two of them made a splendid pair when they walked out together on Sunday afternoons. Thanks to the kindness of Colonel Arnott, Vissio had succeeded in selling the bit of land on which his farm had stood, so he had a good bit of money, too, and though James Gooden, the father, was said to be averse to the idea of his daughter marrying a foreigner, it was thought that Winnie would talk her father over easily enough, if she really meant to have Antonio; but people didn't think that she was seriously in love with him.

"During the spring of 1922 Mr. Gerald Moville came home from Argentina, where he was said to be engaged in cattle-rearing. He was the youngest son of Sir Timothy Moville, whose property adjoined that of Lord Crookhaven. His arrival caused quite a flutter in feminine hearts for miles around, for smart young men are scarce in those parts, and Gerald Moville was both good-looking and smart, a splendid dancer, a fine tennis and bridge player, and in fact, was possessed of the very qualities which young ladies of all classes admire, and which were so sadly lacking in the other young men of the neighbourhood. The fact that he had always been very wild, and that it was only through joining the Air Force at the beginning of the war that he escaped prosecution for some shady transaction in connection with a bridge club in London, did not seriously stand against him, at any rate with the ladies; the men, perhaps, cold-shouldered him at first, and he was not made an honorary member of the County Club at Richmond, but he was welcome at all the tea and garden parties, the dances, and the tennis matches throughout the North Riding, and in social matters it is, after all, the ladies who rule the roost.

"The Movilles, moreover, were big people in the neighbourhood, whom nobody would have cared to offend. The eldest son was colonel commanding a smart regiment--I forget which; one daughter had married an eminent K.C., and the other was the wife of a bishop; so for the sake of the family, if for no other reason, Gerald Moville was accepted socially and his peccadilloes, of which it seems there were more than the one in connection with the bridge club, were conveniently forgotten. Besides which it was declared that he was now a reformed character. He had joined the Air Force quite early in the war, been a prisoner of the Germans until 1919, when he went out to Argentina, where he had made good, and where, it was said, he was making a huge fortune. This rumour also helped, no doubt, to make Gerald Moville popular, even though he himself had laughingly sworn on more than one occasion that he was not a marrying man: he was in love with too many girls ever to settle down with one. He certainly was a terrible flirt, and gave all the pretty girls of the neighbourhood a very good time; he had hired a smart little two-seater at Richmond, and motor-excursions, lunches at the Wheatsheaf at Reeth, jade earrings or wrist watches--the girls who were ready to flirt with him and to amuse him could get anything they wanted out of him.

"But it was soon pretty evident that though Gerald Moville flirted with many, it was Winnie Gooden whom he admired the most. From the first he ran after that girl in a way that scandalised the village gossips. She, of course, was flattered by his attentions, but did not show the slightest inclination to throw Antonio over. She was sensible enough to know that Gerald Moville would never marry her, and she made it very clear that though he amused her, her heart would remain true to her Italian lover. But here was the trouble. Antonio was not the man to run in double harness. His fiery Southern blood rose in revolt against any thought of rivalry. He had won Winnie's love and meant to hold it against all comers, and more than once in public and in private he threatened to do for any man who came between him and Winnie.

"You would have thought that those who were in the know would have foreseen the tragedy from the moment that Winnie Gooden started to flirt with Gerald Moville; nevertheless, when it did occur there was universal surprise quite as much as horror, and there seemed to be no one clever enough to understand the psychological problem that was the true key of that so-called mystery."

§3

"Lord Crookhaven's property, you must know," the Old Man in the Corner resumed after a moment's pause, "extends right over Markthwaite Moor, which is a lonely stretch of country, intersected by gullies, down which, during the heavy rains in spring and autumn, the water rushes in torrents. There are one or two disused stone quarries on the moor, and, except for the shooting season, when Lord Crookhaven has an occasional party of sportsmen to stay with him at the Hall, who are out after the birds all day, this stretch of country is singularly desolate.

"Topcoat's cottage, where Vissio lodged, is on the edge of the moor on the Markthwaite side; about a couple of miles away to the north the moor is intersected by the secondary road which runs from Kirkby Stephen and joins up with the main road at Richmond, and three or four miles again to the north of the road is the boundary wall that divides Lord Crookhaven's property from that of his neighbour, Sir Timothy Moville.

"It was in September, 1922, that the tragedy occurred which made Markthwaite Moor so notorious at the time. Topcoat was walking across the moor in the company of the Italian, both carrying their guns, when about half a mile away, on the further side of the quarry known as the Poacher's Leap, the gamekeeper spied a man who appeared to be crouching behind some scrub. Without much reflection he pointed this crouching figure out to Vissio and said:

"There's a fellow who is up to no good. After the birds again, the damned thief. Run along, my lad, and see if you can't put a shot or two into his legs.'

"Topcoat swore subsequently that when he said this he had not recognised who the crouching figure was. But he was a very hard man where poachers were concerned; he had been much worried with them lately, and a day or two ago had been reprimanded by Lord Crookhaven for want of vigilance. This, no doubt, irritated his temper, and made him rather 'jumpy.'

"Vissio, with his gun on his shoulder, went off in the direction of the Poacher's Leap. Topcoat watched him until a bit of sharply-rising ground hid him from sight. A moment or two later the crouching figure stood up, and Topcoat recognised Mr. Gerald Moville. He had always had exceptionally fine sight, and Mr. Moville had certain tricks of gait and movement which were unmistakable even at that distance. Topcoat immediately shouted to Vissio to come back, but apparently the Italian did not hear him; and the last thing that the gamekeeper saw on that eventful morning was Mr. Moville suddenly turn and walk towards the high bit of ground behind which Vissio had just disappeared.

"And that was the last," my eccentric neighbour concluded with a chuckle all his own, "that has been seen up to this hour of those two men--Mr. Gerald Moville and Antonio Vissio. Topcoat waited for a while on the moor, and called to the Italian several times, but as he heard nothing in response, and as it had started to rain heavily, he finally went home. Vissio did not turn up at the cottage the whole of that day, and he did not come home that night. The following morning, which was a Thursday, Topcoat walked across to the Goodens' cottage to make enquiries, but no one had seen the Italian, and Winnie knew nothing about him. The gamekeeper waited until the Saturday before he informed the police; that, of course, was a serious delay which ought never to have occurred, but you have to know that class of north-country yokel intimately to appreciate this man's conduct throughout the affair. They all have a perfect horror of anything to do with the police: the type of delinquency most frequent in these parts is, of course, poaching, and the gamekeepers on the big estates look on themselves as the only efficient police for those cases. Half the time they don't turn the delinquent over to the magistrates at all, and administer a kind of rough justice as they think best. They hate police interference.

"In this case we must also bear Topcoat's subsequent statement in mind, which was that at first no suspicion of foul play had entered his head. He had not heard the report of a gun, and all he feared was that the Italian had tried to pick a quarrel with Mr. Moville and been soundly punished for his impertinence, and that probably he did not dare show his face until the trouble had blown over. Topcoat, however, spent a couple of days scouring the moor for the missing man, in case he had met with an accident and was lying somewhere unable to move. On the second day he found Vissio's gun lying in a gully close to the Poacher's Leap; it had not been discharged; and the next day--that is, on the Saturday--he very reluctantly went to the police. Even then he made no mention of Mr. Gerald Moville; he only said that his assistant, an Italian named Antonio Vissio, who lodged with him, had not been home for three days, and that he had last seen him on Markthwaite Moor on the previous Wednesday carrying a gun and walking in the direction of the Poacher's Leap. Poachers, of course, were at once suspected; Topcoat referred vaguely to Vissio having gone after a man whose movements had appeared suspicious. He was severely blamed for having delayed so long before informing the police; even if the Italian had not been the victim of foul play he might, it was argued, have met with a serious accident, and been lying for days perhaps with a broken leg out in the cold and wet, and might even have perished of exposure and neglect. But this latter theory Topcoat would not admit. He had scoured the moor, he declared, from end to end; if Vissio had been lying anywhere he swore that he would have found him.

"Another three or four days were now spent by the police in scouring the moor, and it was only after a last fruitless search that Topcoat mentioned the fact that he had seen Mr. Gerald Moville the very morning and close to the spot where Vissio disappeared: that, as a matter of fact, he was the man after whom the Italian had gone, and that the two must have met somewhere near the north end of the Poacher's Leap.

"Of course, to the general public--to you, for instance--Topcoat's attitude of reticence all this while must seem positively criminal; but it is useless to measure the conduct of people of that class in remote north-country districts by the ordinary rules of common sense. For a man in Topcoat's position to connect 'one of the gentry' with the disappearance of a gamekeeper's assistant--and a foreigner at that--would seem as preposterous as to imagine that the King of England would go poaching on his neighbour's estate. It simply couldn't be, and when the D.C.C. to whom Topcoat first made this statement rebuked him with unusual severity, the gamekeeper turned sulky and declared that he didn't see he had done anything wrong.

"More than a week you see had elapsed since that Wednesday morning when Vissio had last been seen alive; for the past four days the police had worked very hard, but entirely in the dark. Now at last they felt that they had a glimmer of light to guide them in their search. The public, who had taken some interest at first in the Moorland Mystery, was beginning to tire of reading about this fruitless search for a missing dago. But now, suddenly, the mystery had taken a sensational turn. Topcoat's statement had found its way into the local papers, and Mr. Gerald Moville's name was whispered in connection with the case. And hardly had the lovers of sensation recovered from this first shock of surprise, when they received another that was even more staggering.

"Mr. Gerald Moville, it seems, had left home on the very day that Vissio disappeared, and his people were without news of him. Just think what this sensational bit of news meant! It evoked at once in the mind of the imaginative a drama of love and jealousy, a real romance such as is only dreamt of in the cinema, with an Italian dago as the jealous lover, and a handsome young Englishman as the victim of that jealousy. The police, holding on to this clue, turned their attention to the investigation of Mr. Gerald Moville's movements on the morning of that eventful Wednesday: they had to go very tactfully to work, so as not to cause alarm to Sir Timothy and Lady Moville. It seems that Mr. Gerald had on the Monday previously announced his sudden intention to return immediately to Argentina. According to statements made by one or two of the servants, he did this at breakfast one morning after he had received a couple of official-looking letters that bore the Buenos Ayres postmark. Lady Moville had been very distressed at this, and she and Sir Timothy had tried to dissuade Mr. Gerald from going quite so soon; but he was quite determined to go, saying that there was some trouble at the farm which he must see to at once or it would mean a severe loss not only to himself, but to his partner. He finally announced that he would have to go up to London on the Wednesday at latest to see about getting a berth, if possible, in a boat that left Southampton for Buenos Ayres the following Saturday. Preparations for his departure were made accordingly. On the Tuesday the chauffeur took his luggage to Richmond and saw to its being sent off to London in advance. It was addressed to the Carlton Hotel. On the Wednesday Mr. Gerald had breakfast at half-past six, as he wished to make an early start; he was going to drive the little two-seater back to the place in Richmond whence he had hired it, and then take the train that would take him to Dalton in time to catch the express up to London. He had said good-bye to his parents the evening before, and, having tipped all the servants lavishly, he made a start soon after seven.

"Two labourers going to their work saw the little car speeding along the road that intersects the moor; according to their statement there were two people in the car, a man and a woman. They thought that the man who was driving might have been Mr. Moville, but the woman had on a thick veil and they had not particularly noticed who she was. On the other hand, one witness had seen the car standing unattended on the roadside within a hundred yards of a group of cottages, one of which was occupied by Gooden. Whereupon Winnie was taken to task by the police. Amidst a flood of tears she finally confessed that she had seen Mr. Moville on the Wednesday morning. He had called for her in his car very early; her father had only just gone to work, so it could not have been much later than seven o'clock; he told her that he had some business to attend to in Richmond, would she like to come for a run and have lunch there with him. To this she willingly assented. On the way Mr. Moville told her that as a matter of fact he was going away for good, and that he could not possibly live without her. He begged her to come away with him; he would take her to London first, and buy her everything she wanted in the way of clothes, and then they would go on to Paris, and travel all over the world and be the happiest couple on this earth.

"It seems that the girl at first was carried away by his eloquence; she was immensely flattered and thrilled by this romantic adventure, until something he said, or didn't say, some expression or some gesture--Winnie couldn't say what it was--but something seemed to drag her back. Probably it was just sound Yorkshire common sense. Anyway, she took fright, turned a deaf ear to Gerald Moville's blandishments, and insisted on being taken back to her father's cottage at once. Still to the accompaniment of a flood of tears Winnie went on to say that Mr. Gerald 'carried on terribly' when she finally refused to go away with him, and he reproached her bitterly for having played with him, all the while that she was in love with that 'dirty dago.' But Winnie was firm, and in the end the disappointed lover had to turn the car back and take the girl home again. It was then close upon nine o'clock. Mr. Gerald drove her to within half a mile of her father's cottage; here she got out and walked the rest of the way home. She had not seen Mr. Moville since; on the other hand, one of the neighbours told her that soon after she went off in the car that morning, Antonio Vissio had called at the cottage, and seemed in a terrible way when he was told that she had gone out with Mr. Moville.