The Bungalow Mystery (15 page)

“What made you think that?”

The sailor passed his handkerchief over his forehead and shifted uneasily in his seat.

“I couldn't rightly say, sir; only as I thought he was about the same build, and the way he throwed himself over the stile; to the best of my belief it was the same man, but I'm not prepared to swear it.”

“Umph!” Detective Collins was making another lengthy note. The inspector went over and stood near him. Presently Collins looked up.

“Now, my man, you have not told me how it was that all this was not brought to the notice of the police at the time.”

Wilson's face brightened up; he was sure of his ground here.

“As I said, sir, I was due to join the
Thistledown
at Southampton on the morning of the 15th. I only had time to catch the mail south, and at the port it was all bustle and confusion, and I never so much as saw an English paper for the next six months. We was to have called for mails at Sydney, but Sir John changed his mind, and they was sent after us later on. It seems as I missed two or three of my letters, and among them one from Mary, telling me of this here murder. Then, when we was thinking of coming home—past a year it was then, for Sir John he had been took with a fancy for exploring like, and couldn't be got away—I got a touch of their nasty yellow fever; they put in at Yokohama, and I was left at the mission-station. That is how it is I didn't get home till a month or so ago, and never heard a word of the Bungalow murder till Mary told me. You might ha' knocked me down with a feather when I understood what had happened. ‘Mary, my girl,' I says, ‘the best thing I can do is to go straight to the police.' So here I am, sir, and I am sorry I was not here sooner.”

Detective Collins did not speak for a minute or two; his brows were drawn together as he gazed, first at the plan and then at his notebook.

“Yes; if we had known this at the time we might soon have brought the affair to a satisfactory conclusion,” he said at last. “After two years, it is a very different matter. Still, we must do the best we can. Do you know at all in which direction the man went after he passed you?”

Mr. Matthew Wilson's face was illumined by a sudden smile.

“Why, I declare I was forgetting! He went on across the next field as far as we could see, and then in a minute or two we heard a motor start in the lane as you come out on the opposite side. I have always thought that it had been waiting for him there, and he went off in it; but of course I can't say.”

The detective pricked up his ears.

“Which way did it go?”

Wilson hesitated.

“I should say away from the village, on the main road towards Birmingham, by the sound, sir; but I couldn't be sure.”

“Probably came the same way too,” Inspector Spencer interpolated. “That would account for nothing being seen of it in the village that night.”

“I forgot to say that the cigarette-case slipped my memory,” Wilson went on. “I put it in my pocket, meaning to give it to Mary, as I said , but there, my mind was full of other things; I never give it a thought again, till I found it in my pocket one day when we was well out to sea. I always took care of it, though, meaning to send it to The Bungalow when I got the chance. But when I saw Mary and heard what had been going on, I thought the best thing I could do was to bring that, too, to the police.

The detective nodded.

“That is all right, then. I don't think we can go any further to-day, inspector, except that I must ask you, Wilson, how long a time elapsed between your hearing the shot and the man overtaking you in the field. Was there time, in your judgment, for the man to have reached you if he left The Bungalow after the shot was fired?”

Wilson looked doubtful.

“I couldn't rightly say, sir, not having taken any particular notice. It seemed to me a tidy time before he come; but, then, he might have climbed the wall or come out at the front door and round by the gate. I couldn't tell; I didn't give much heed to it.” He stood up. “Is that all, sir?”

“For the present, yes. You must have a glass of beer and a mouthful of bread and cheese, my man.” The detective looked at Inspector Spencer.

But Matthew Wilson shook his head.

“No, sir, thank you kindly, but young Ned will be waiting for me; he has never been the same since he was at Dr. Lavington's; them nasty fits are always coming on him, and he's frightened like of most folks; but he has took a bit of a fancy to me, so, as me and Mary are spending the day over at Coton, at her mother's, I promised I would make haste to get back.” Touching his hair once more to the detective, he went to the door.

Inspector Spencer opened it and watched him walking down the path.

“I shouldn't wonder if we are in for a thunderstorm later,” he remarked, gazing at the dark clouds on the horizon, and drawing a deep breath of the cooler air outside before he turned back to the parlour. “Well, Mr. Collins, what do you make of it?”

“Darned if I know what to make of it!” The detective was frowning at his plan as if to vent his irritation on that. “Did she get in and shoot him directly the man had gone, or did he shoot him and then clear off?”

“Or did the two of them do it together? I mean, were they both in it?” Inspector Spencer questioned. Mr. Collins moved his hand impatiently.

“No, no; that is out of the question. Matthew Wilson's evidence all goes to prove that they had no connection; they came independently and left separately. What we have to ask ourselves in the first place is, which of them shot Rheinhart? And I'm blessed if I can answer it anyway. In the second, who are they? And why did your precious doctor mix himself up in the affair?”

The inspector pinched his chin thoughtfully.

“Ah, that is a mystery, that is!” he acknowledged. “I didn't care for his manner from the first; but still, I wasn't prepared—”

He stopped; there was a knock at the door; his wife put her head in. “Here's a telegram for you, Sam; the boy's waiting to see if there is an answer.”

Inspector Spencer tore the brown envelope open and read the contents over once—twice.

“There is no answer, Mary; tell him.” Then he held out the sheet of flimsy paper to the detective. “This ought to help us, sir: ‘Identified. Leaving for Sutton Boldon to-night—Carton.'”

Mr. Collins permitted himself a low whistle.

“It should be plain sailing now. If the owner of the diamond ring is found, why, we shall soon know the answer to my second question, inspector.”

“I wonder whether it occurs to you, Roger, that a dose of strychnine would be the truest kindness?” Courtenay was making his slow progression in his wheeled chair backwards and forwards on the terrace. The moving of this chair himself by using the propeller was the only means of exercise possible to him. Knowing its value, Lavington encouraged it as much as possible. He made no reply to Courtenay's speech, beyond slightly raising his eyebrows, as he read his paper.

Courtenay paused beside his chair.

“Any news, old fellow? I'm sick of these wretched elections. Any probability of the long-prophesied war coming off?”

“I don't think so; not immediately at any rate.” Courtenay's mouth twisted sardonically.

“When it does, a few more men will know what mutilation is like. Oh, Lavington, what would I give for just one day of the old life! To move as I wished, to feel the grass under my feet, if only for an hour!” He wheeled himself off as he spoke. Roger looked after him with a very real pity and understanding. In truth, it was a terrible life; it was small wonder that he rebelled.

Presently he came back again.

“I saw something about the Bungalow murder the other day—that it was likely to be raked up again; but it seems to have ended in smoke. I suppose you would hear that talked about when you were at Sutton Boldon?”

Roger was filling his pipe. This sudden mention of the subject that was uppermost in his mind rather took him aback.

“More than I wanted,” he answered slowly. “I was the doctor called in; and the whole thing took up considerably more of my time than I could afford to spare.”

Courtenay stared at him apparently in bewilderment.

“You were the doctor called in! I was under the impression that you had only been there a short time.”

Roger shrugged his shoulders.

“Two years is not a very long time, is it?”

“N–o.” Courtenay pondered matters a minute or two. “Still, I do not know how I came to make such a mistake. You were called in you say? What opinion did you form?”

“What opinion could I form but that the man had been shot?” Roger parried. “He was a blackguard. Enough came out at the inquest to prove that; plenty of evidence was found among his papers. The—the person who shot him probably had only too much reason.”

Courtenay did not make any immediate rejoinder. He wriggled his chair backwards and forwards on the gravel, his eyes absently roaming over the park.

A terrible longing, an unutterable sadness, shook him. With a great effort he thrust the memory of the past behind him and leaned forward.

“You went down to Sutton Boldon the other day, Roger; did you hear anything of this there?”

Lavington was apparently immersed in a brown study. He roused himself with a start.

“Hear of what? Oh, the Bungalow murder. Yes, in a small place like Sutton Boldon, of course there is little else to talk about.”

Courtenay wheeled himself a little backward into the shade of the great cedar that stood on the lawn beyond.

“What is the clue they speak of in the papers?”

“I don't know.” Lavington's eyes wandered to the big copper beeches that stood sentinel-wise by the entrance to Daphne's garden. Farther down in the hollow by the stream there was the little bridge, the woods that hid Luxmore Hall from sight. “It—I believe they have found out that the girl who died at Northchester is not the one who shot Maximilian von Rheinhart.”

“Not!” The word seemed wrung from Courtenay.

Glancing at him, Roger saw that his face was ghastly white, that beads of perspiration were standing on his brow. He sprang up with an exclamation of concern. Courtenay forced a smile to his stiff lips.

“Only a touch of the old pain, old fellow; it is passing now. You told me I must not expect to get rid of it all at once, you know! So the police have been on the wrong track all this time?”

Roger shrugged his shoulders.

“So it seems.”

Courtenay was apparently in a loquacious mood this afternoon; he took out a cigarette and lighted it.

“I read what most of the papers said about the Bungalow murder when I was supposed to be getting better, before I realized what an absolutely useless log I had become. It seemed to me that I had got out of touch with things in my illness, and one of the first things I did was to send for a pile of old papers, and see what had happened while I was incapacitated. This Bungalow murder loomed rather large in the public imagination just then; and of course it was fixed in my mind by the fact that the murderer—murderess, I should say—was supposed to be killed in the disaster in which I was injured. Now you say that she was not.”

Roger frowned.

“I don't say so. It is the police who claim to have made the discovery.”

“At any rate, killed or not, I should imagine she has got clean away,” Courtenay went on. “Even the most sanguine detective could hardly hope to trace the crime to the right quarter after this lapse of time.” Roger knocked his pipe out against the stone balustrade; a tiny puff of wind caught the ashes and blew them over a Niphetos bud, staining its delicate whiteness a drabby, unclean brown. Roger's eyes rested on it mechanically.

“I should have thought so. But it appears the police are not of our opinion. I hear they have every hope of effecting an arrest shortly.”

Courtenay wheeled himself off towards the house.

“It is rather hot out here. I fancy my head will he better indoors. When the police make a definite statement of that kind it generally covers a multitude of incompetencies. Probably this case will prove no exception. No, don't come with me, old fellow; I shall try to get an hour or two's sleep.”

Roger waited a while. The day had been very hot; it was pleasant there in the shade, with no sound to break the stillness save the humming of the insects, the twittering of the birds in the trees, or the striking of the old church clock as it slowly counted out the hours. But peaceful though the scene was, Roger felt himself strangely out of harmony with his surroundings. It seemed to him that even the very calm held foreboding of sinister possibilities.

Though a week had elapsed since his first meeting with Miss Luxmore, he had not spoken to her again. Once he had walked past the bridge and caught a glimpse of Daphne's figure leaning over the rails, her face turned longingly to the house that was to have been hers. But when he had gone nearer, she had shown plainly that she did not wish to speak to him. At the first sound of his footsteps she had turned quickly away, and hastened up the slope to Luxmore Woods.

To-day, however, Lavington was restless and ill at ease. He was haunted by a feeling that the evil that threatened the Luxmores was growing nearer any moment the storm might burst over their heads. Possessed by this fear, it was impossible to sit still; powerless as he was to avert the catastrophe, any sort of movement seemed better than inaction.

He got up and, after pacing the terrace awhile strolled off into the park. This time he did not turn his steps to the stream; instead, he kept on the other side of the rose-garden, intending, on turning out of the park, to take the footpath to Norton, an outlying farm let to a man named Corbett, with whom the men Roger had seen watching the cricket on the village green a week ago were staying. He had ascertained that the one with the black beard, the one who had so strangely reminded him of Detective Collins, was no longer there; but the other, who was ostensibly an artist, remained. Mrs. Corbett gave out that he was in bad health, and had been ordered into the country for quiet.