Crossword Mystery (30 page)

Bobby wrote down the words to which the starred clues referred, taking those across first and then those down. He got the result:

“Dig. North. Gas. Beware. Ruined. South. Feet. Of. Ten. Corner. And. Light. House.”

Incoherent enough. A mere medley, apparently making no sense. Yet, as he sat and pored over them, it seemed to him that from these words a kind of faint aroma of a meaning distilled itself. It hovered over the words, danced like a flickering light that vanished before he could seize it, came, and was gone again. He tried to put them together, to see which of them would make a consecutive meaning. “Beware” and “ruined,” for example, were words that might go together. But “beware” is of the present or the future, “ruined” is of the past, so that would not do. What else was there that would fit in with “beware”? “Gas,” perhaps; yes, that would certainly do. “Beware gas” made sense all right, and there was an “and,” and “and” is a conjunction, suggesting that the sentence, if one really existed, was in two parts. The end of the sought sentence then might be “and beware gas.” But how to arrange the other words in any satisfactory order? There was “ruined,” for one, to start with. It made him think of the ruined summer-house where he and the others had worked so hard during the night. But there was no reference to a “summer-house,” ruined or not, in the puzzle. There was the word “house,” certainly, and the word “light,” which might go with “house” perhaps. “Ruined lighthouse” would make sense, but there was no lighthouse, ruined or otherwise, that Bobby knew of anywhere near. But he was growing excited now, and he saw that, of the words that were left, several – “ten,” “feet,” “north,” “south,” “corner” – might refer to measurements, perhaps to directions where to “dig.”

His hand was trembling a little as he wrote down the message now in this form:

“Dig ten feet north [south] or south [north] corner ruined lighthouse and beware gas.”

That at least made sense – a sort of sense. But was it a sense that stood in any relation to actual facts?

It was comparatively late now and, in the village, signs of life had been apparent for some time. Bobby got his motor-cycle and began to wheel it over the turf towards the rough path that ran by the edge of the cliffs between Suffby village and its nearest neighbour along the coast. He saw a man going early to work, walking along the path towards him, and recognised him as one with whom he had at times exchanged a word or two. The new-comer looked astonished to see Bobby standing there with his motorcycle, and said something about an early ride, and Bobby, ignoring this, asked him if there was any ruined lighthouse in the neighbourhood. He answered, a little as if he doubted Bobby's sanity, that he had never heard of one. But Bobby was in no mood to take “No” for an answer. Circumstance had said “No” to him too long, and, now that at last he had seemed to extract some hint of a “Yes,” he was not going to be put off with another “No,” if he could help it. He took two half-crowns from his pocket and jingled them together.

“Quite sure?” he said. “Quite sure there's nothing in the shape or way of a ruined lighthouse anywhere near here?”

The other looked longingly at those two half-crowns reposing in Bobby's open palm. Not often did a chance to earn five shillings so easily come his way. “Why, five shillings would mean a joint of pork for a slap-up dinner for the whole family the coming Sunday, such a dinner as they would remember and talk about for months to come.

But he shook his head.

“There ain't nothing of that sort round here, guv'nor,” he answered emphatically, “not since poor Mr. Archibald, the gent that got drownded, pulled down almost all what was left of it and made the rest into his garage next his house.”

The next moment he stood still and bewildered, gasping alternately at the five shillings thrust into his hand and at the flying figure on the motor-bicycle vanishing at breakneck speed along that rough path by the cliff side.

Along the rough, uneven cliff path Bobby's machine bumped and roared, while in its rider's head seemed to echo and re-echo that phrase with which the crossword puzzle had been headed: “Key word: Gold.”

For that injunction, “Dig,” it seemed to him might well be in close relationship thereto; and “Gold” prove indeed the key, not only to the puzzle, but to other things as well, as so often in human history “Gold” has been the key and cause of so many other tragic happenings since man first chose to link his fate so closely to this bright, yellow metal. Two deaths already, Bobby reminded himself, had their places in the tragic tale, and there might well be, he knew, a third to add to the count if he arrived too late.

He slackened speed a little as the village drew near. He noticed a wisp of smoke coming from the Fairview chimneys. Probably Mrs. Cooper was getting ready for the day's work, for, though in the summer most of the cooking was done on a small electric stove, she often made use as well of the big, old-fashioned kitchen range which also heated the water for the baths and other household purposes.

In the village, too, most of the inhabitants were up and about. Some of them came out of their cottages to see what stray motorist was passing so early in the morning, and Bobby felt he had started conjecture and curiosity that would be hard to satisfy. It was too late to bother about that, however, and, besides, as Mary Raby apparently knew his business, very possibly others did as well. For the tiniest hole in a secret is like the tiniest hole in the bottom of the biggest of tanks – very soon it's all out.

He found himself wondering if Mrs. Cooper were one of those who knew; if perhaps she had been the first to guess. He tried to remember anything he might have said or done that could have given her a hint of the truth, but could think of nothing.

He left the village behind, rounded the Cove, followed the track – smoothed and levelled and made into a tolerable road by Archibald Winterton when he first came to live here – that led to the house Archibald had occupied at the end of the headland. The gate leading to the grounds round the house Bobby found padlocked when he came to it, but when he dismounted, to look more closely, he had little difficulty in assuring himself that it had been opened and re-fastened only recently.

He did not bother to lift his cycle over, but left it standing against the hedge, and, climbing the gate, he went on towards the house.

It was closely shuttered, and had, even in the bright morning sunshine, that deserted and melancholy air empty houses so soon acquire, as if they knew somehow that thus they lacked all significance or use. The garden looked wild and neglected, too, for, though one of the men from the village had been engaged to come and tidy it up every week, he was paid less than he thought fair, and so neglected his work and often did not come at all.

Though Bobby had explored the promontory pretty thoroughly one morning shortly before the tragedy of George Winterton's death, he had not given the house itself, or the grounds surrounding it, much attention. His chief interest then had been in the little half-private beach below, whence Archibald Winterton had started for his last swim.

The house was a long, low building, facing due south. At the east end – that is, nearest the sea – was the garage, attached to the house, and much older and much more solid in construction than the rest of the building. Evidently it had been largely reconstructed, but a good part of the original walls remained. The space in front of the door had been flagged, and advantage had been taken of the great thickness and strength of the walls to support, above the garage proper, an enormous tank, into which, when it was working, an oil engine pumped water for the household from an adjacent spring. It was a tank that looked big enough, Bobby thought, to supply not only one household, but a whole village, and must hold, he supposed, a good many tons of water.

The garage door was secured by a strong padlock. Bobby examined it carefully. New, he told himself; too new, indeed, in his opinion to have been there long, exposed to sea air and weather. To him it had very much the air of having been in position only a very short time. Bobby had no key. Nor had he any authority to force an entrance; but, after all, breaking into an empty garage is not quite the same as breaking into a house, and, without his knowing why, he was aware of a strange belief that for some reason there was no time to lose.

He examined the padlock closely, and was able to recognise it as one of a well-known make he would not find it easy to open. It had not even the disadvantage of the high hasp so many padlocks are made with, so that there is no difficulty about inserting a lever and twisting till the padlock breaks. The door was strong, too; and then he thought of examining the “peak” or “peg” let into the wood of the doorpost. That looked, in fact, very much as if it had merely been let in without any precaution taken to twist or spread the ends, so as to give them any real hold. In addition, the wood looked worn and ragged, as if another hole had been made there before in the same place. Taking hold of the padlock, and using it itself as a lever, he was able, by exerting all his force, to drag out the peg, when, of course, the padlock ceased to secure anything. Bobby looked at the disengaged padlock as it lay in his hand.

“Whoever put that on, meant it to stay on,” he mused, “only they forgot a padlock is only as strong as the peg that holds it. But why should anyone be so keen on making an empty garage so secure as all that?”

He opened the door, and at once was assailed by a strong, rather sweet, overpowering odour that set him coughing and retching, and his eyes watering so much that he could not for the moment see very clearly. But, when he could, it was to make out huddled in a corner, in shadow, where the strong bright rays of the morning sunshine that streamed in by the open door did not reach, the prostrate figure of a man.

“Ah, my God, a third!” he said below his breath, and ran across, nor was he surprised when he recognised Colin Ross.

The sweet, pure sea air had already done much to overcome the poisonous vapours that had affected him at the opening of the door, and he remembered rather grimly that warning at the end of the sentence he had constructed: “Beware gas.” Evidently, he had not erred in putting those two words together. But now, looking closer, he saw it was not only the poison of the gas that had affected Colin, but that he had been bleeding from deep wounds in the chest, where he had been stabbed twice over. The bleeding did not seem to have been serious, however, perhaps having been arrested through the action of the gas in slowing down the circulation.

Looking more closely, Bobby thought it was not certain that death had yet occurred. He could not feel the heart beating; he could not distinguish even the faintest sign of breathing; and yet somehow it seemed to him that some traces of vitality still lingered, however precariously; that as yet the physical habitation was not utterly emptied of that strange essence, power, principle, that bears the name of life.

Bobby had, like other members of the police force, for whom the training is obligatory, some knowledge of first aid, but this he felt was far outside his capacity to help. And he had committed a grave blunder, he recognised now, in coming alone. He should have brought with him someone he could send for help. As it was, he would have to go for help himself, he supposed, and that would mean leaving Ross alone, and leaving also, unwatched and unguarded, a place that might well repay a close and prompt examination. Anything might happen while he was away, but there was no help for it; and then, getting to his feet and looking round, he saw that in one spot digging had been going on. He could not help going across to look. The floor was paved, but here a flag had been lifted, and, underneath, a small hole had been made in the solid foundation of the old lighthouse. Close by lay an open box, very strongly made and metal lined. It was quite empty, and considerable violence had evidently been used in breaking it open, for it was badly smashed, while near by, lying on its back, was a book Bobby saw was a volume of Coleridge's poems, open at “The Ancient Mariner”. But what struck Bobby most was the small size, both of the hole that had been hollowed out in the foundation of the building, and of the box itself. The hole could have held nothing much larger than the box; the box could not have held any great quantity of whatever had been its contents; the book alone, if that had been inside, must have nearly half filled it.

“If it was gold the box held – ‘Key word: Gold,'” Bobby thought, with a touch of disappointment, “there can't have been more than a few pounds' worth – a hundred or two at the outside.”

And that seemed to him a very poor, inadequate explanation to put forward for so grim a sequence of tragedy.

Then he rebuked himself for wasting time on fresh speculation while a dying fellow-creature needed aid, but, all the same, he could not help picking up the broken box and sniffing at it, with the result that once more he had to go coughing and staggering to the doorway to get there the relief of the pure and strong sea air, so dazed, indeed, that for the moment he could only cling to the doorpost and wait till the nausea and faintness passed.

He remembered having noticed a flight of stone steps at the back of the garage, and it struck him that very likely they led to the huge water-tank above. A drink of water would help to revive him, he thought, and take away the feeling of nausea he was suffering from.

He crossed quickly to them, accordingly, and, ascending them, found his conjecture was correct. The steps led to a huge chamber wherein the water-tank was situated, and a ladder gave access to the tank itself. Climbing the ladder, Bobby was able to fill a tin dipper he had found, and the drink of water he took refreshed him greatly and relieved both the burning sensation he was experiencing in the throat and stomach and the dizzy and giddy feeling in his head that had before seemed to be growing steadily worse. Finding himself much better, he descended to the garage again, giving this time the empty box a wide berth. But he had an impulse to look at the book, and, as he had expected, he found it bore Mr. George Winterton's book-plate, so that it had plainly come from Fairview. He noticed, too, that the poem of “The Ancient Mariner”, at which it lay open, had a blue pencil-mark placed against the line: