Chapter VIII.
An Interrupted Symposium
“Have a cigarette,” said Grant to Furneaux, when the blinds were drawn, a lamp lighted, and the sherry dispensed.
“Thank you.”
The self-invited guest took one. He sniffed it, broke the paper wrapping, and crumbled some of the tobacco between finger and thumb.
“Ah, those Greeks!” he said sadly. “They simply can’t go straight. This brand of Turk used to be made of a tobacco grown on a slope above Salonica. A strip of sun-baked soil built up a reputation which is now being bartered for filthy lucre by the use of Egyptian ‘fillings.’”
“You’re a connoisseur, Mr. Hawknose—try these,” said Hart, proffering a case, from which the detective drew a cigarette, throwing the other one aside.
“Why ‘Hawknose’?” he inquired.
“A blend. First syllable of Hawkshaw and second of Furneaux—the latter Anglicized, of course.”
“And vulgarized.”
“You prefer Furshaw, perhaps?”
“Either effort is feeble for a man who can write about South America, and be lucid. Do you smoke this stuff, may I ask?” While talking, he had smelt and destroyed the second cigarette.
“If it’s a fair question, what the devil do you smoke?” cried Hart.
“Nothing. I’m a non-smoker. My profession demands a clear intellect, not a brain atrophied by nicotine.”
“Piffle! Carlyle and Bismarck were smokers.”
“Who reads Carlyle now-a-days? And what modern German pays heed to Bismarck’s dogmas? Look at that pipe of yours. It was once a pure ivory white. Now it is black—soiled by tobacco juice. Your lungs are slowly emulating it, and your wits will cloud in time. Read Tolstoi, Mr. Hart. He will teach you how nicotine deadens the conscience.”
“At last I know why I smoke like a Thames tug,” laughed Hart, “but I’m blest if I can understand why you make such a study of the vile weed.”
“Most criminals are addicted to the habit. I classify them by their brand of tobacco. For instance, a clever forger would never descend to thick twist, while a swell mobsman would turn with horror from a woodbine.”
Minnie entered, and nodded, whereupon Grant led the others upstairs to wash. From the bathroom he looked out over a darkening landscape. Doris’s dormer window was open. She was leaning on the sill, but he could not tell whether or not her eyes were turned his way. Her attitude was pensive, disconsolate, curiously forlorn for a girl normally high-spirited. He was on the point of signaling to her when he remembered Furneaux’s presence. There was something impish, almost diabolically clever, in that little man’s characteristics which induced wariness.
The dinner was a marvel, considering the short notice given to the cook. Luckily, Mrs. Bates, a loyal soul, had resolved to tempt her employer’s appetite that evening. Village gossip had it that the police were about to arrest him, and she was determined he should enjoy at least one good meal before being haled to prison. Hence, the materials were present. The rest was a matter of quantities, and Sussex seldom stints itself in that respect.
The chatter round the table was light and amusing. The three were well matched conversationally. Furneaux evidently held the opinion once expressed by a notable Walrus—that the time had come
To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings.
He was in excellent form, and the others played up to him. Hart’s slow drawl was ever trenchant and witty, and Grant forgot his woes in congenial company. As for the mercurial detective himself, it might be said of him as of the school-master of Auburn:
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.
It was he who dropped them with a bounce from the realm of fancy to the unpleasing region of ugly fact. No sooner had Minnie cleared the table, and brought in the coffee, than he whisked around on Grant as though hitherto he had been only awaiting an opportunity of scarifying him.
“Now,” he said, propping an elbow on the table, and supporting his chin on a clenched fist, “the embargo is off the Steynholme affair. You didn’t kill Adelaide Melhuish, Mr. Grant. Who did?”
“I wish I could tell you,” was the emphatic answer.
“Do you suspect anybody? You needn’t fear the libel law in confiding your secret thought to me, and I assume that Mr. Hart is trustworthy—where his friends are concerned?”
“Why that unkind differentiating clause, my pocket Vidocq?” put in Hart.
“Because two Kings and a baker’s dozen of Presidents have, at various times, sent most unflattering reports to this country about you.”
“I must have annoyed ’em most damnably.”
“You had. I congratulate you, but Heaven only knows where I may convoy you some day on an extradition warrant....Proceed, Mr. Grant.”
“I assure you, on my honor, that the only reasonable suggestion I can make is that put forward by my gardener to-day,” said Grant. “He thinks that the murder must have been committed by a lunatic. I can offer no other hypothesis.”
“Your gardener may be right. But what lunatic, barring yourself and the horse-coper, Elkin, is in love with Doris Martin?”
Like Elkin the previous night, Grant struck the table till things rattled.
“Keep her name out of it,” he cried fiercely. “You are a man of the world, not a suspicious idiot of the Robinson type. You heard to-day the full and true explanation of her presence here on Monday night. It was a sheer accident. Why harp on Doris Martin rather than any member of the Bates family?”
“Who, may I ask, is Doris Martin?” put in Hart.
“The Steynholme postmaster’s daughter,” said Furneaux. “A remarkably pretty and intelligent girl. If her father was a peer she would be the belle of a London season. As it is, her good looks seem to have put a maggot in more than one nut in this village.”
Hart waved the negro’s head in the air.
“The lunatic theory for mine,” he declared. “If one woman’s lovely face could bring a thousand ships to Ilion, why should not another’s drive men to madness in Steynholme?”
“Well phrased, sir,” cackled Furneaux delightedly. “I’ll wangle that in on a respected colleague of mine, who is a whale at deducing a proposition from given premises, but cannot induce a general fact from particular instances to save his life ... Now, stifle your romantic frenzy, Mr. Grant, and listen to me. If you were minded to instruct me in the art of writing good English, I would sit at your feet an attentive disciple. When I, Furneaux, of the ‘Yard,’ lay down a first principle in the investigation of crime, I expect deference on your part. I tell you unhesitatingly that if Doris Martin didn’t exist, Adelaide Melhuish would be alive now. That, as a thesis, is nearly as certain a thing as that the sun will rise to-morrow. I go farther, and hazard the guess, not the fixed belief, though my guesses are usually borne out by events, that if Doris Martin had not been in this garden at half past ten on Monday night, Adelaide Melhuish would not have been killed some twenty minutes later. It is useless for you to fume and rage in vain effort to disprove either of these presumptive facts. You are simply beating the air. This mystery centers in and around the postmaster’s daughter. Come, now, you are a reasonable person. Admit the cold, hard truth, and then give play to your fancy.”
“Sir,” said Hart, brandishing his pipe again, “I suggest that you and I, here and now, form a mutual admiration society.”
“It is a cruel and bitter thing that an innocent girl should be dragged into association with a foul crime,” said Grant stubbornly. “I am not disputing the force of your acumen, Mr. Furneaux. My only desire is to shield the good name of a very charming young lady.”
“What’s done can’t be undone,” countered the detective, well knowing that Grant confessed himself beaten.
“But what is all the bother about? You heard from Miss Martin’s own lips absolutely the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Put her in the witness-box, and what more can she tell you?”
“I am not worrying about her appearance in the witness-box,” said Furneaux dryly. “Long before that stage is reached I shall be hunting a star burglar, or, perhaps, looking into the Foreign Office dossier of our worthy friend here, as to-day’s papers hint at trouble in Venezuela. No, sir. The county police will get all the credit. P. C. Robinson will be swanking about then, telling the yokels what he did. I, with Olympic nod, say, ‘There’s your man!’ and the handcuffs’ brigade do the rest. So far as I can foresee, Miss Martin’s name may be spared any undue prominence in this inquiry. I go even farther, and promise that anything I can do in that way shall be done.”
“That is very kind and considerate of you,” said Grant gratefully.
“Don’t halloo till you’re out of the wood.” said Furneaux, sitting back suddenly and nursing his left knee with clasped hands. “I can’t control other people’s actions, you know. What I insist on to-night is that you shall envisage this affair in its proper light. We have a long way to travel before counsel rises with his smug ‘May it please you, me lud, and gentlemen of the jury.’ But, having persuaded you to agree that, willy nilly, Miss Doris is the hub of our little universe for the hour, I now swear you and this fire-eater in as assistants. There must be no more speeches, no punching of heads, very little love-making, and that by order—”
“Has the postmaster’s daughter a delectable sister, O Liliputian cop?” demanded Hart.
“No. Two of ’em would have caused a riot long since. Mr. Grant will do all, and more than all, necessary in that direction.”
Grant leaned forward. He spoke very earnestly.
“I want you to believe me when I tell you,” he said, “that I never gave serious thought to the notion of marrying Miss Martin until such a possibility was suggested last night by that swab, Ingerman.”
“Ah, Ingerman! You kept a record of what he said, I gather?”
“Yes, here it is.”
Grant rose, and went to a writing-desk with nests of drawers which stood against the wall on the left of the door. He never used it for its primary purpose. When the table was laid for meals, Minnie or her mother had orders to remove all papers and books to the top of the desk. The house contained no other living-room of size. The hall was spacious; a smoking den next the dining-room had degenerated into a receptacle of guns, fishing-rods, golf-clubs, Alpenstocks, skis and other such sporting accessories. The remainder of the ground-floor accommodation was given up to the Bateses.
Unlocking a drawer, Grant produced a notebook, which he handed to Furneaux. The detective laid it on the table. He was sitting with his back to the large window. Hart faced him. Grant’s chair was between the two.
“By the way, as you’re on your feet, Mr. Grant,” said Furneaux, “you might just show me exactly where you were standing when you saw the face at the window.”
“For the love of Mike, what’s this?” gurgled Hart. “‘The face at the window’; ‘the postmaster’s daughter.’ How many more catchy cross-heads will you bring into the story?”
“Poor Adelaide Melhuish undoubtedly came here on Monday night and looked in at me while I was at work,” said Grant sadly. “You know the history of my calf love three years ago, Wally.”
“Shall I ever forget it? You bored me stiff about it. Then, when the crash came, you walked me off my legs in the Upper Engadine. Ugh! That night on the Forno glacier. It gives me a chill to think of it now. Furneaux, pass the port. Your name is wrongly spelt. It should be fourneau, not Furneaux. A little oven. Hot stuff. Got me?”
“My dear Hart, you flatter me,” retorted the detective instantly.
“How long am I to pose here?” snapped Grant.
“Sorry,” said Furneaux. “These interruptions are banal. Is that where you were?”
“Yes. I had my hand outstretched for a book. It’s dark in this corner. When I want to find a book I light a candle, which is always placed on the ledge of the window for the purpose. The blind was not drawn that night. It seldom is. I had the book in my hand, and had found the required passage when I chanced to look at the window and saw her face.”
“Do you mind reconstructing the scene. This lamp was on the table, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
“Well, pull up the blind, light your candle, and find the book. Act the whole incident, in fact.”
Grant obeyed. He held the candlestick until he had picked out the particular volume; then he placed it in the recess of the window, and searched through the pages of the book.
Furneaux bent forward so as to watch the rehearsal and catch the effect of the light externally. The hour was not so late as when Adelaide Melhuish, or her ghost, gazed in through one of those narrow panes, but the night was dark enough to lend the necessary vraisemblance. Hart, deeply interested, looked on with rapt, eager eyes. For a full minute the tableau remained thus. Then, with a rapidity born of many a close ’scape in wild lands, Hart drew a revolver from a hip pocket, and fired at the window.
He alone was in a position to see through all parts of it. Grant was still thumbing a small brown volume in the manner of one who knew that a certain passage would be found therein but was ignorant of its exact place in the text. Furneaux, intent on his every movement, had only a side-long view of the window, which, it will be remembered, formed a tiny rectangle in a thick wall.
The revolver was a heavy-caliber weapon, and the explosion blew out the lamp. The flame of the candle flickered, owing either to the passage of the bullet or the disturbance of the air. But it burnt steadily again within the fifth part of a second, and they all saw a starred hole in the center pane of glass of the second tier from the bottom.
“What fool’s game are you playing?” shrilled Furneaux, nevertheless active as a wildcat in his spring to the French window, there to snatch at the blind and turn the knob which controlled a lever bolt.
“Laying another ghost—one with whiskers,” said Hart coolly. “I got him, too, I think.”
“You must be mad, mad!” shrieked the detective, tearing open the window, and vanishing.
“For Heaven’s sake, Wally, no more shooting!” cried Grant, running after Furneaux.
Minnie and her mother appeared at the dining-room door. Finding the place in semi-obscurity, and reeking with gunpowder, they screamed loudly.
“You Steynholme folk are all on the jump,” said Hart. “Cheer up, fair dames! Thunder relieves the atmosphere, you know, and one live cartridge is often more effective than an ocean of talk.”
“Bub-bub-but who’s shot, sir?” gasped Minnie.
“A ghost, a most scoundrelly apparition, with fearsome eyes, offensive whiskers, and a hat which is a base copy of mine.”
“Owd Ben!” sighed Mrs. Bates, collapsing straightway in a faint.
Luckily, Minnie caught her mother and broke her fall, because the housekeeper was large and solid, and might have been seriously injured otherwise. Hart was distressed by this development, but, being eminently a ready person in an emergency, he rose to the occasion by extracting the empty case from the revolver, and holding it to the poor woman’s nostrils, while supporting her with an arm and a knee.
“This is far more effective than burnt brown paper, Minnie,” he said. “Now, don’t get excited, but mix some brandy and water, and we’ll have your mother telling us who Owd Ben is, or was, before Hawk-eye comes back to disturb us. Judging by the noises I hear, he’s busy outside.”
“That’s father!” shrieked Minnie hysterically.
“Good Lord! Has your father—”
For an instant, Hart was nearly alarmed, but Grant’s voice came authoritatively:
“It’s all right, Bates. Let go, I tell you!”
“Phew!” said Hart. “I was on the point of confusing your respected dad with Owd Ben ... That’s it, ma! Sniff hard! As a cook you’re worth your weight in gold, which is some cook.”
Meanwhile, Furneaux, seeing that no dead body was stretched on the strip of grass beneath the window, dashed into the shrubbery to the right, and was clutched in a mighty embrace by an older but much more powerful man in Bates, who had hurried from the front of the house on hearing the pistol-shot. Most fortunately, the gardener, deeming his vigil a needless one, had not armed himself with a stick, or the consequences might have been grave. As it was, no one except Hart had been vouchsafed sight or sound of the latest specter, which, however, had left a very convincing souvenir of its visit in the shape of a soft felt hat with two bullet holes through the crown.
Furneaux, quivering with silent wrath, soon abandoned the search when this pièce de conviction was found at the root of the Dorothy Perkins rose-tree. Seeing the lamp relighted, he peremptorily bade Grant and Bates come in with him. He closed the window, adjusted the blind again, and poured generous measures of port wine into two glasses. Handing one to Bates, he took the other himself.
“Friend,” he said, “some men have fame thrust upon them, but you have achieved it. To-night you pierced the heel of Achilles. Here’s to you!”
“I dunno wot ’ee’s saying mister, but ‘good health’,” said Bates, swigging the wine with gusto.
“Now, for your master’s sake, not a word to a soul about this hubbub.”
“Right you are, sir! But that there pryin’ Robinson wur on t’ bridge five minutes since. And, by gum, here he is!”
A determined knock and ring came at the front door. Minnie, helped by Hart, had just escorted Mrs. Bates to the kitchen.
“Let me go!” said Furneaux, darting out into the hall. He opened the door, and thrust his face into the police-constable’s, startling the latter considerably. Before Robinson could utter a syllable, the detective hissed a question.
“Did anyone cross the bridge after that shot was fired?”
“Nun—No, sir,” stuttered the other.
“You saw no one running along the road?”
“Saw nothing, sir.”
“Very well. Glad to find you’re on the job. Don’t let on you met me here. Good-night!”
Mighty is Scotland Yard with the provincial police. Robinson was back on his self-imposed beat before he well realized that he knew neither why nor by whom nor by what sort of weapon the commotion had been created. But he was quite sure the noise came from the garden front of Mr. Grant’s house.
“That little hop-o’-me-thumb thinks he’s smart, dam smart,” he communed angrily, “but I’ve taken a line of me own, an’ I’ll stick to it, though the Yard sends down twenty men!”
He heard footsteps coming down a paved footpath which ran like a white riband through the cobble-beaded width of the high-street, and withdrew swiftly to the shelter of a disused tannery adjoining the village end of the bridge. A cloaked female figure sped past. Though the night was rather dark for June, he had no difficulty in recognizing Doris Martin’s graceful movements. No other girl in Steynholme walked like her. She was slim enough to dispense with tight corsets, and tall enough to wear low-heeled shoes, nor did she need to pinch her toes in order to gain the semblance of small feet.
After her went Robinson, keyed to exultation by this outcome of his watchfulness. She was going to The Hollies, of course. The road led to Knoleworth, and no young woman of her age in the village would dream of taking a lonely walk in the country at ten o’clock at night.
For a man of his height and somewhat ponderous build, the policeman followed with real stealth. Thus, when she turned in at the gate, he was there by the time she had reached the front door. He heard her pull the bell. Curiously enough, to his thinking, Furneaux again appeared.
“Is Mr. Grant at home?” he heard Doris say.
“Yes. Will you come in?” replied the detective.
“Is he—is all well here?”
“Quite, I assure you. But do come in. I’ll escort you home. I’m going to the inn in five minutes.”
Doris, after hesitating a little, entered.
Robinson crept on tiptoe over a stretch of gravel, and took to the shrubbery. It was high time, he thought, that the local constabulary learnt what was going on in that abode of mystery.