Chapter XIV.
On Both Sides of the River
The sun, transmuted into Greenwich time, exercised an extraordinary influence on the seemingly humdrum life of Steynholme that day. A few minutes after three o’clock—just too late to observe either Winter or Siddle—P. C. Robinson strolled forth from his cottage. He glanced up the almost deserted high-street, in which every rounded cobble and white flagstone radiated heat. A high-class automobile had dashed past twice in forty minutes, but the pace was on the borderland of doubt, so the guardian of the public weal had contented himself with recording its number on the return journey.
But his thoughts were far a-field from joyriders, stray cattle, hawkers without licenses, and other similar small fry which come into the constabulary net. It would be a feather in his cap if he could only strike the trail of the veritable Steynholme murderer. The entrancing notion possessed him morning, noon, and night. Mrs. Robinson declared that it even dominated his dreams. Robinson was sharp. He knew quite well that the brains of the London detectives held some elusive quality which he personally lacked. They seemed to peer into the heart of a thing so wisely and thoroughly. He did not share Superintendent Fowler’s somewhat derogatory estimate of Furneaux, with whom he was much better acquainted than was his superior officer, while Chief Inspector Winter’s repute stood so high that it might not be questioned. Still, to the best of his belief, the case had beaten both these doughty representatives of Scotland Yard; there was yet a chance for the humble police-constable; so Robinson squared his shoulders, seamed his brows, and marched majestically down the Knoleworth road.
He had an eye for The Hollies, of course, though neither he nor anybody else could discern more than the bare edge of the lawn from bridge or road, owing to the dense screen of evergreen trees and shrubs planted by the tenant who remodeled the property.
But the spot where the body of Adelaide Melhuish was drawn ashore was visible, and the sight of it started a dim thesis in the policeman’s mind which took definite shape during less than an hour’s stroll. Thus, at four o’clock exactly, he was pulling the bell at The Hollies. Almost simultaneously, Mr. Siddle knocked modestly on the private door of the post office, to reach which one had to pass down a narrow yard.
“Mr. Grant at home?” inquired Robinson, when Minnie appeared.
Yes, the master was on the lawn with Mr. Hart. The policeman found the two there, seated in chairs with awnings. They had been discussing, of all things in the world, the futurist craze in painting. Hart held by it, but Grant carried bigger guns in real knowledge of the artist’s limitations as well as his privileges.
Hart was the first to notice the newcomer’s presence, and greeted him joyously.
“Come along, Robinson, and manacle this reprobate,” he shouted. “He’s nothing but a narrow-minded pre-Rafaelite. A period in prison will dust the cobwebs out of his attic.”
“Hello, Robinson!” said, Grant. “Anything stirring?”
“Not much, sir. I just popped in to ask if you remembered exactly how the body was roped?”
“Indeed, I do not. Some incidents of that horrible half hour have gone into a sad jumble. I recollect you calling attention to the matter, but what your point was I really cannot say now. Perhaps it may come back if you explain.”
“Well, we don’t seem to be making a great deal of progress, sir, and I was wondering whether you two gentlemen might help. I don’t want it mentioned. I’m taking a line of me own.”
Grant repressed a smile. He recalled well enough the first “line” the policeman took, and the mischief it had caused. Being an even-minded person, however, he admitted that his own behavior had not been above suspicion on the day the crime was discovered. In allotting blame, as between Robinson and himself, the proportion was six of one and half a dozen of the other.
“Propound, justiciary,” said Hart. “You’ve started well, anyhow. The connection between a line and a rope should be obvious even to a judge.... As a pipe-opener, have a drink!”
Robinson had removed his helmet, and was flourishing a red handkerchief, not without cause, the day being really very hot.
“Not for a few minutes, thank you, sir,” said the policeman. “May I ask Bates for a sack and a cord?”
He went to the kitchen. Hart was “tickled to death,” he vowed.
“We are about to witness the reconstruction of the crime, a procedure which the French delight in, and the intellect of France is a hundred years ahead of our effete civilization,” he chortled.
Grant was not so pleased. The memory of a distressing vision was beginning to blur, and this ponderous policeman must come and revive it. Yet, even he grew interested when Robinson illustrated a nebulous idea by knotting a clothesline around a sack stuffed with straw, having brought Bates to bear him out in the matter of accuracy.
“There you are, gentlemen!” he said, puffing after the slight exertion. “That’s the way of it. How does it strike you?”
“It’s what a sailor calls two half hitches,” commented Hart instantly. “A very serviceable knot, which will resist to the full strength of the rope.”
“We have no sailors in Steynholme, sir,” said the policeman.
“Oh, it’s used regularly by tradesmen,” put in Grant. “A draper, or grocer—any man accustomed to tying parcels securely, in fact—will fashion that knot nine times out of ten.”
“How about a—a farmer, sir?” That was as near as Robinson dared to go to “horse-dealer.”
“I think a farmer would be more likely to adopt a timber hitch, which is made in several ways. Here are samples.” And Grant busied himself with rope and sack.
Robinson watched closely.
“Yes,” he nodded. “I’ve seen those knots in a farmyard.... Well, it’s something—not much—but a trifle better than nothing.... All right, Bates. You can take ’em away.”
“Have you shown that knot to Mr. Furneaux?” inquired Grant.
“No, sir. I’ve kept that up me sleeve, as the sayin’ is.”
“But why?”
Robinson shuffled uneasily on his feet.
“These Scotland Yard men will hardly listen to a uniformed constable, sir,” he said. “I’ll tell ’em all about it at the inquest on Wednesday.”
“In effect, John P. Robinson he sez they didn’t know everythin’ down in Judee,” quoted Hart.
“You’ve got my name pat,” grinned the policeman, whose Christian names were “John Price.”
“My name is Walter, not Patrick,” retorted Hart. Robinson continued to smile, though he failed to grasp the joke until late that evening.
“Did you make up that verse straight off, sir,” he asked.
“No. It’s a borrowed plume, plucked from an American quill pen.”
Hart gave “plume” a French sound, and Robinson was puzzled to know why Grant bade his friend stop profaning a peaceful Sunday afternoon.
“You’ll have a glass of beer now?” went on the host.
“I don’t mind if I do, sir, though it’s tea-time, and I make it a rule on Sundays to have tea with the missis. A policeman’s hours are broken up, and his wife hardly ever knows when to have a meal ready.”
Minnie was summoned. It took her a couple of minutes to draw the beer from a cool cellar. So it chanced that when Doris led Mr. Siddle to the edge of the cliff about twenty-five minutes past four, the first thing they saw was the local police-constable on the lawn of The Hollies putting down a gill of “best Sussex” at a draught.
“Well!” cried the chemist icily, “I wonder what Superintendent Fowler would say to that if he knew it?”
“What is there particularly wrong about Robinson drinking a glass of beer?” demanded Doris, more alive to the insinuation in Siddle’s words than was quite permissible under the role imposed on her by Winter.
She waved her hand to the party on the lawn. Grant, whose eyes ever roved in that direction, had seen her white muslin dress the moment she appeared.
“Who the deuce is that with Miss Martin?” he said, returning her signal.
“Siddle, the chemist,” announced Robinson, not too well pleased himself at being “spotted” so openly. “Well, gentlemen, I’ll be off,” and he vanished by the side path through the laurels.
“Siddle!” repeated Grant vexedly. “So it is. And she dislikes the man, for some reason.”
“Let’s go and rescue the fair maid,” prompted Hart.
“No, no. If Doris wanted me she would let me know.”
“How? At the top of her voice?”
“You’re far too curious, Wally.”
“Semaphore, of course,” drawled Hart. “When are you going to marry the girl, Jack!”
“As soon as this infernal business has blown over.”
“You haven’t asked her, I gather?”
“No.”
“Tell me when you do, and I’ll hie me to London town, though in torrid June. You’re unbearable in love.”
“The lash of your wit cuts deeply sometimes,” said Grant quietly.
“Dash it all, old chap, I was talking at random. Very well. I’ll do penance in sackcloth and ashes by remaining here, and applauding your poetic efforts. I’ll even help. I’m a dab at sonnets.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Siddle had regained his poise.
“I meant nothing offensive to the donor of the beer,” he said, tuning his voice to an apologetic note. “But I take it Robinson is conducting certain inquiries, and I imagine that his superiors demand a degree of circumspection in such conditions. That is all.”
“Surely you do not rank with the stupid crowd in its suspicions of Mr. Grant?” said the girl.
“I’m pleased to think you refuse to class me with the gossip-mongers of Steynholme, Doris,” was the guarded answer.
There had been no reference to the murder during tea, which was served as soon as the chemist came in. The visitor had tabled a copy of a current medical journal containing an article on the therapeutic qualities of honey, so the talk was lifted at once into an atmosphere far removed from crime. Doris was grateful for his tact. When her father went to the office she brought Mr. Siddle into the garden solely in pursuance of her promise to the detective, though convinced that there would be no outcome save a few labored compliments to herself. And now, by accident, as it were, the death of Adelaide Melhuish thrust itself into their conversation. Perhaps it was her fault.
“No,” she said candidly. “No one who has known you for seven years, Mr. Siddle, could possibly accuse you of spreading scandal.”
“Seven years! Is it so long since I came to Steynholme? Sometimes, it appears an age, but more often I fancy the calendar must be in error. Why, it seems only the other day that I saw you in a short frock, bowling a hoop.”
“A tom-boy occupation,” laughed Doris. “But dad encouraged that and skipping, as the best possible means of exercise.”
“He was right. Look how straight and svelte you are! Few, if any, among our community can have watched your progress to womanhood as closely as I. You see, living opposite, as I do, I kept track of you more intimately than your other neighbors.”
Siddle was trimming his sails cleverly. The concluding sentence robbed his earlier comments of their sentimental import.
“If we live long enough we may even see each other in the sere and yellow leaf,” said Doris flippantly.
“I would ask no greater happiness,” came the quiet reply, and Doris could have bitten her tongue for according him that unguarded opening. Suddenly availing herself of the advice which the detective, like Hamlet, had given to the players, she gazed musingly at the fair panorama of The Hollies and its gardens, with the two young men seated on the lawn. By this time Minnie was staging tea, and the picture looked idyllic enough. Doris saw, out of the tail of her eye, that her companion was watching her furtively, though apparently absorbed in the scene. He moistened his thin lips with his tongue.
“As a study in contrasts, that would be hard to beat,” he said, after a long pause.
“Contrasts!” she echoed.
“Well, yes. Even an uncontentious man like myself can hardly fail to compare Sunday afternoon with Tuesday morning.”
“Why not Monday night?” she flashed.
“Monday night, in part, remains a mystery yet to be unveiled. I blot Monday night from my mind. I have no alternative, being on the jury which has to arrive at a just verdict. Now, if Fred Elkin were here, he would foam at the mouth.”
“Happily, Fred Elkin is not here.”
“Ah, I am glad, glad, to hear you say that. You don’t like him?”
“I detest him.”
“He makes out, to put it mildly, that you are great friends.”
“You will oblige me by contradicting the statement. Or—no. One treats that sort of man with contempt.”
“I agree with you most heartily. I’m sorry I ever mentioned him.”
Yet Doris was well aware that the chemist had dragged in Elkin by the scruff of the neck, probably for the sake of getting him disposed of thoroughly and for all time. Rather on the tiptoe of expectation, she awaited the next move. It was slow in coming, so again she looked wistfully at the distant tea-drinkers. She found slight difficulty in carrying out this portion of the stage directions. Truth to tell, she would gleefully have gone and joined them.
Siddle was not altogether at ease. The conversation was too spasmodic to suit his purpose. Though slow of speech he was nimble of brain, and, knowing Doris so well, he had anticipated a livelier duel of wits. In all likelihood, he cursed the tea-party on the lawn. He had not foreseen this drawback. But, being a masterful man, he tackled the situation boldly.
“I seized the opportunity of a friendly chat with you to-day, Doris,” he went on, leaning over the fence to inhale the scent of a briar rose. “The story runs through the village that you and your father dined at The Hollies on Friday evening. Is that true?”
Now, Doris had it on reliable authority that Siddle himself had been the runner who spread that story, and the knowledge steeled her heart against him.
“Yes,” she said composedly.
“It was kind and neighborly of you to accept the invitation, but a mistake.”
She turned and faced him. His expression was baffling. She thought she saw in his sallow, clean-cut features the shadow of a confident smile.
“You mean that this horrid murder should make some difference in the friendship between ourselves and Mr. Grant?” she cried.
“Yes. To you, though to no one else would I speak so plainly, I have no hesitation in saying that Mr. Grant is far, very far, from being clear of responsibility in that matter. Three days from now you will understand what I mean. Evidence will be forthcoming which will put him in a most unenviable light. I am not alleging, or even hinting, that he may be deemed guilty of actual crime. That is for the law to determine. But I do tell you emphatically that his present heedless attitude will give place to anxiety and dejection. It cannot be otherwise. A somewhat sordid history will be revealed, and his pretense that relations between him and the dead woman ceased three years ago will vanish into thin air. Believe me, Doris, I am actuated by no motive in this matter other than a desire to further your welfare. I cannot bear even to think of your name being associated, in ever so small degree, with that of a man who must be hounded out of his own social circle, if no worse fate is in store for him.”
“Good gracious!” cried Doris, genuinely amazed. “How do you come to know all this?”
“I listen to the words of those qualified to speak with knowledge and authority. I have mixed in varied company this past week, wholly on your account. Don’t be led away by the mere formalities of the opening day of the inquest. The coroner deliberately shut off all real evidence except as to the cause of death. On Wednesday the situation will change, and you cannot fail to be shocked by what you hear, because you will be there.”
“I am given to understand that, even if I am called, my testimony will be of no importance.”
“Such may be the police view. Mr. Ingerman will press for a very different estimate.”
“Has he told you that?”
“Yes.”
“So, although foreman of the jury, you have not declined to hobnob with a man who is avowedly Mr. Grant’s enemy?”
“I would hobnob with worse people if, by so doing, I might serve you.”
Grant, “fed up,” as he put it to Hart, with watching the tête à tête between Doris and the chemist, sprang to his feet and went through a pantomime easy enough to follow save for one or two signs. Doris held both hands aloft. Well knowing that anything in the nature of a pre-arranged code would be gall and wormwood to Siddle, she explained laughingly:
“Mr. Grant signals that he and Mr. Hart are going for a walk; he wants me to accompany them. But I can’t, unfortunately. I promised dad to help with the accounts.”
“If you really mean what you say, my warning would seem to have fallen on deaf ears.”
Siddle’s voice was well under control, but his eyes glinted dangerously. His state was that of a man torn by passion who nevertheless felt that any display of the rage possessing him would be fatal to his cause.
But, rather unexpectedly, Doris took fire. Siddle’s innuendoes and protestations were sufficiently hard to bear without the added knowledge that a ridiculous convention denied her the companionship of a man whom she loved, and who, she was beginning to believe, loved her. She swept round on Siddle like a wrathful goddess.
“I have borne with you patiently because of the acquaintance of years, but I shall be glad if this tittle-tattle of malice and ignorance now ceases,” she said proudly. “Mr. Grant is my friend, and my father’s friend. In the first horror of the crime which has besmirched our dear little village, we both treated Mr. Grant rather badly. We know better to-day. Your Ingermans and your Elkins, and the rest of the busybodies gathered at the inn, may defame him as they choose, or as they dare. As for me, I am his loyal comrade, and shall remain so after next Wednesday, or a score of Wednesdays. I am going in now, Mr. Siddle, and shall be engaged during the remainder of the evening. Your shop opens at six, and I am sure you will find some more profitable means of spending the time than in telling me things I would rather not hear.”
Siddle caught her arm.
“Doris,” he said fiercely, “you must not leave me without, at least, learning my true motive. I—”
The girl wrested herself free from his grip. She realized what was coming, and forestalled it.
“I care nothing for your motive,” she cried. “You forget yourself! Please go!”
She literally ran into the house. The chemist, unless he elected to behave like a love-sick fool, had no option but to follow, and make his way to the street by the side door.
The only other happening of significance that Sunday was an unheralded visit by Winter to the policeman’s residence.
He popped in after dusk, opening the door without knocking.
“You in, Robinson?” he inquired.
“Yes, sir. Will you—”
“Shan’t detain you more than a minute. At the inquest you said that you personally untied the rope which bound Miss Melhuish’s body. Here are a piece of string and a newspaper. Would you mind showing me what sort of knot was used?”
Robinson was nearly struck dumb, and his fingers fumbled badly, but he managed to exhibit two hitches.
“Ah, thanks,” said Winter, and was off in a jiffy.
From the window of a darkened room Robinson watched the erect, burly figure of the detective until it was merged in the mists of night.
“Well, I’m—,” he exclaimed bitterly.
“John, what are you swearing about?” demanded his wife from the kitchen.
“Something I heard to-day,” answered her husband. “There was a chap of my name, John P. Robinson, an’ he said that down in Judee they didn’t know everything. And, by gum, he was right. They knew mighty little about London ’tecs, I’m thinking. But, hold on. Surely—”
He bustled into his coat, and hastened to The Hollies. No, neither Mr. Grant nor Mr. Hart had spoken to a soul about the knot. Nor had Bates. Of course, Robinson did not venture to describe Winter. Finally, he put the incident aside as a clear case of thought-reading.