Ten Star Clues (22 page)

“I see,” said Ralph gloomily. “You know I left about half-past ten? I suppose you think I could easily have come back. I could. I didn't.”

“Will you tell us what you did after leaving here?”

“I went straight back home.”

“Did you meet any one on the way?”

Ralph shook his head.

“No,” he said. “I've no proof—no—what do you call it?—alibi. I walked back as fast as I could, thinking of all the things I wished I had said to uncle—and all the things I wished I hadn't. I walked pretty fast, trying to walk off my temper. You know where I live? It's the house built for old Anderson. He was estate agent till he died and I took it on. It's much too big a place for me, but there isn't anywhere else. When I got back I didn't feel like turning in at once. It was a fine night and I sat down in the garden and smoked a pipe and thought of some more things I wished I had told uncle—and some more things I wished I hadn't. And I thought how old Clinton would rub it in next time and remind me he had warned me what would happen and tried his best to stop me. Only all he said only made me more determined.”

“In what way?” Bobby asked. “Why was that?”

“Oh, I suppose I am an obstinate beggar. Clinton's a real lawyer. He trotted out all the ‘pros' as he called them, and then all the ‘cons', and all he said only made me more pig-headed. I wasn't scared of what uncle said or of his giving me the sack right away and making this sham Bertram agent in my place. When I let myself into the house I stayed up for a time and made some notes for a talk I ought to have had to-day with the Argentine bloke I was to have seen in Liverpool—a thousand-pound deal washed out, probably. He won't wait. Well, I suppose that doesn't matter much.”

“There are servants in the house?”

“Housekeeper and maid. It's a big place. Old Anderson had a large family and got it built to suit himself.”

“Did they hear you come in?”

“I don't suppose so. Why should they? Fast asleep probably, and I didn't make any awful amount of noise.”

The colonel was looking at his papers again.

“You and Miss Anne Hoyle are understood to be engaged,” he remarked.

Ralph stiffened perceptibly.

“I don't think there is any need to discuss our private affairs, is there?” he said.

“I mentioned it,” explained the colonel, “because it may help us to know how all you people stand to each other, and because Miss Hoyle told us the engagement has been broken off.”

“It is for her to decide,” Ralph answered as stiffly as before. “I think you must ask her if you want to know anything more.”

“I am sorry,” the colonel continued, “if you think I'm intruding on private matters, but there may be some kind of bearing on your uncle's murder. I'm afraid I must ask if the engagement was broken by Miss Anne's wish? If so, is there any reason you know of or is it a result of Bertram's return? If so again, does that mean that she believes he is the genuine Bertram, and therefore now the rightful Earl Wych?”

“You must ask her yourself what she thinks,” Ralph retorted. He went on angrily:— “I daresay she is like every one else and thinks the old people ought to know. Every one seems to think that settles it. Every one,” he added with a sudden softening of his expression, “except Miss Longden.”

“Miss Longden,” repeated the colonel, surprised, “why, what does she know about it?”

“As much as any one else, I suppose,” retorted Ralph. “Got a right to her opinion, hasn't she? She seems to be about the only one who thinks I've any business to stand up for myself. She told me she would fight it out till she dropped.” He smiled again, and his smile had the effect of altering his whole expression in the oddest way—of changing him from a scowling, angry combatant likely to be at your throat at any moment, into a grinning, friendly school-boy likely at any moment to confide to you the last piece of fun he had enjoyed. ‘Two men in him,' Bobby said to himself, ‘only which is fundamental?' and Ralph went on:—“She's a quiet little thing, and you would think she was scared of her own shadow, but she's got guts all the same. Once she has made up her mind to a thing, I don't believe she would ever budge.”

The colonel didn't say anything. But privately be agreed. He knew because he had tried. She had made up her mind—not to answer his questions—and nothing had made her budge. Suspicious, the colonel thought darkly. Unless she knew more than she ought to know, why had she taken up that attitude, that defiant attitude? He went on:— 

“We know the murderer used a point three-two automatic pistol. We have heard of two. The one that ought to be in this drawer, and isn't, and no one seems to know what has become of it. Then there's the one generally kept in the Wych estate office, the one you were cleaning yesterday. Mr. Longden and Mr. Clinton Wells were present, and both say they saw you lock it up in the estate office safe.” Fumbling amidst the mass of papers before him, he found the account of the incident and read it aloud. “That is correct, is it?” he asked. “In every detail?”

“Very correct and very detailed,” Ralph agreed. “You don't suppose that it was used last night, do you? I don't think that's possible. I don't suppose you suspect Mr. Longden, do you? He had the key of the safe in his possession till next morning apparently. But not the office door key. My typist was there till after five, and after she had gone the housekeeper cleaned up, bolting the door on the inside when she had finished. After that, no one could have got in except through her kitchen, and she was sitting there till she went to bed at eleven. I've taken the trouble to make sure of all that because I remembered about the pistol. And you've had a man there watching the safe nearly all day, haven't you?”

“Yes, that's so,” agreed the colonel. “Mr. Longden seems an absent-minded gentleman. Could any one have got the key from him and then returned it somehow?”

“Difficult, I should think,” commented Ralph. “Anyhow, you must ask him that. If any one did, how did he get into the office?”

“Perhaps it would be as well,” suggested Bobby, “if we made sure first if the pistol is still in the safe. If it is, we can soon be certain whether it was used last night or not.”

“Is that correct?” Ralph asked a little doubtfully. “I've been told that's possible, but can you be certain?”

“Quite certain,” Bobby assured him. “It really seems that the universe is of an infinite variety—no two things are ever identical. Everything can always be distinguished from everything else, and the bullets fired from one pistol from those fired by any other pistol in existence.”

“Well, we'll go and have a look,” said the colonel briskly. “Will you come, too, Ralph?”

“I will,” Ralph answered with considerable emphasis, “though I'm certain the thing is still there because it can't possibly be anywhere else, and so it can't have been the one used last night. That's rather a cracked idea.”

“Oh, well,” Bobby explained, “most detective work is trying out cracked ideas. By the way,” he added after they had started, “can you tell me why it always seems to be Earl Wych and not Earl of Wych, like Earl of Derby and so on. I know there's no place actually Wych by itself. Is that the reason? There's Midwych, of course, Brimsbury Wych, Wychwood, half a dozen other Wychs, but no single Wych, is there?”

“Not that I know of,” Ralph answered briefly and without replying to the first question.

“Is that why the title is Earl Wych and not Earl of Wych?”

“Might be,” grunted Ralph, and added somewhat irritably:— “What do you want to know for? some more subtle detective work?”

“Might be,” Bobby answered good-humouredly. “I was just wondering. British titles are a bit complicated, you know. I've heard of a British baronet and when he went to the States, because of the ‘Bart' after his name, he got called either ‘Bart' under the impression that that was his surname, or else ‘my bart', on the analogy of ‘my lord'.”

Ralph stood still and stared at Bobby suspiciously.

“What's the idea?” he demanded. “What are you getting at? Trying to be funny? I don't think this is the time, if that's it. Not now. Or trying to pull my leg? I don't like that idea either. Not just now.” 

“I assure you,” Bobby said earnestly, “it's not that. I'm asking a serious question and I have a serious purpose. Will you answer it?”

“Can't,” Ralph replied, “because no one knows. I can tell you the family legend, but there's nothing to support it. The story is that when the Baron Hoyle of that time was created an earl he meant to be Earl Wych of Wychwood. He owned part of the forest and meant the title to sort of make a claim to the rest of it. But he was so pleased about getting his earldom that he wanted every one to celebrate and sent round a cask of wine to the chaps who were making out the patent. The result was that they all imbibed a bit freely, and the ‘of Wychwood' got left out. So the title went through as ‘Earl Wych' and Earl Wych it has been ever since. That's the yarn. But there's no real authority for it. Interested?”

“I find it very interesting,” Bobby answered; and then they arrived at the estate office where, when the so carefully guarded safe was opened with the key that had been so long in Mr. Longden's possession, they found indeed the case for the automatic. But it was empty.

Of the automatic itself, there was no sign.

The closest investigation, the most prolonged inquiry, threw no further light on the disappearance of the estate automatic. Three witnesses, the vicar, Clinton Wells, Ralph himself, were all prepared to swear they had seen the weapon locked up in the office safe. Yet now it wasn't there, but only—as in the library at the castle—an empty case that once, no doubt, had held a pistol and that, again, as at the castle, bore no finger marks upon a polished surface eminently suitable for taking such impressions. Miss Higson, the estate office typist, who liked to call herself secretary, had been at work in the outer office till half-past five and no one could possibly have entered the inner office without her knowledge. No one had even, as it happened, with the exception of herself, been in the outer office between Ralph's departure and her own. At half-past five she had locked up and gone home, taking the office key with her as usual, so as to be able to let herself in in the morning. During the evening Mrs. Gregson, the housekeeper, who occupied rooms above the offices, had cleaned and swept and tidied as usual. There were only three ways of reaching the inner office where was the safe. Through the outer office, its door locked by Miss Higson on her departure; through Mrs. Gregson's kitchen, where she was sitting all evening; by the front door admitting to stairs that led to the upper floor occupied by her. But that way led also through the kitchen. She had locked up carefully at night as usual and there were no signs of any forcible entry.

“Duplicate keys,” said the colonel gloomily. “Any one may have had them. Mr. Longden had the safe key in his possession till early morning. He may have had a duplicate key to the office door as well. It's a perfectly simple lock. Plenty of keys would open it. Most unsatisfactory. I could open it myself with a hairpin.”

That was about as far as their inquiries took them that night, though it was late before they agreed that nothing more could be done till morning. And then Bobby sat up till the small hours, putting on paper, as he always liked to do, the chief impressions he had derived from the events, the talks, the interviews of the day. One by one he passed in review the various actors in recent events, and if he began to see, or, rather, to think he saw, the faint outline of a pattern beginning to appear, it was an outline so faint, so strange, indeed so fantastic, involving so many suppositions, that until he could secure some solid evidence to support it, he felt his wisest course would be to keep it to himself.

“It might be,” he said half aloud. “Cold-blooded devilry,” he mused. “Quick thinking and quick action, too. Only—too much guess-work. Won't do to say anything yet. Won't do to let my bird suspect there's any suspicion yet. And then,” he added, this time quite aloud and with sudden depression, “I may be entirely wrong. Probably 9am.

Next morning, at the Midwych county police headquarters, which incidentally he entered by the back way so as to avoid the many newspaper men who were clamouring for information, and so thronging round and about the front entrance as to make access thereby a complicated process—but how magnificently had the colonel strode through their serried ranks, just like the hosts of the Israelites passing through the held-up waters of the sea —Bobby showed his chief the long memorandum he had drawn up.

“I thought,” he remarked, “those talks and interviews we had were all extraordinarily interesting. So many different motives turned up we had had no idea of before, there seemed such a complicated interplay of character and interests, the people concerned were themselves all so striking and unusual in their different ways.”

“All very well,” grunted the colonel, “but what solid conclusions do we get out of it all?”

“I don't think any as yet,” admitted Bobby. “I think that's what makes it so fascinating. It's like watching through a smoke screen. You get a glimpse and then it's gone again. You see what looks like something solid and next moment you see it's only a smoke wreath. You see a figure clearly and even while you are watching you see it turn into another and then vanish entirely, so that there's nothing there at all. I jotted down a few notes last night,” he added.

As he spoke he handed to the colonel the memorandum he had written during the night. The colonel began to read, impressed already by the heading.