CHAPTER II
THE TRAGEDY AT WHITE TOWERS
WHEN I came down to Stone Hollow to take over my new inheritance, I found the house completely furnished on extremely comfortable if rather old-fashioned lines; and Martha Helter in possession. She had been my aunt’s housekeeper for over twenty years and had evidently every intention of being mine also. I was quite agreeable, since it saved me a lot of trouble, nor have I so far seen any reason to regret that decision.
Mrs. Helter—the title had apparently been accorded her by courtesy, since she was still a spinster and everybody but myself used it; but I began with Martha, her Christian name, and Martha it is to this day—is a most capable manager and runs my household with a precision that reminds one of well-oiled wheels, and a careful economy that has its recommendation in these days of ridiculous prices. She seemed to know and to be known by almost everybody in the Dale, and was an all but exhaustless fountain of anecdote and news.
I say “all but” because she could not give me immediately the information I sought regarding my pretty midnight visitor. Not that I attached very much actual importance to that queer incident. It had amused me, and perhaps, though I would not confess it even to myself, I was just a little piqued at being so cleverly outwitted by a mere girl. I had cause during the day to revise my estimate of the interest I was to take in my uninvited guest. But my first thought was to identify her.
“Martha,” I said to my housekeeper, “did you ever meet hereabouts a young lady wearing a grey woollen cap and a long cloak without sleeves, a sort of cape reaching to her boots?”
Martha Helter pondered the question for a minute or two, but shook her head.
“I don’t think I have ever seen a cloak like that in Cartordale,” she replied.
“I saw one yesterday,” I said, “and I wondered who the wearer was. Never mind, perhaps I shall see her—I mean it—again. It was the pattern of the cloak that took my fancy.”
I am not quite sure why I added that last phrase, though if Martha noticed anything she kept a perfectly straight face.
“A grey woollen cap and a long cloak without sleeves?” said the little maid who entered the room at that moment and to whom the housekeeper propounded the question. “Why, yes’m, that’s Miss Kitty Clevedon—lives with her ladyship, you know. There are two gentlemen to see the master,” she added.
“Bring them in,” I said. “Who are they? Do you know them?”
“One of them is Sergeant Gamley, of the County Police,” Susan replied, “but the other is a stranger and did not give his name.”
“Bring them in,” I repeated.
Sergeant Gamley was in uniform, a tall, thin man with a long hatchet face and an air of important solemnity which he never shed. His companion was rather more rotund in build, with puffy red cheeks above which peered small, keen eyes that did not seem to linger long on anything, but which for all that missed nothing. Abraham Pepster was chief of the detective force at Peakborough, the county town, and one may judge to some extent his prevailing characteristic by the fact that his nickname among disrespectful subordinates was “Gimlet-eyes.” It was, however, Sergeant Gamley who opened the conversation on this particular occasion.
“We have called, Mr. Holt,” he said, “with regard to the tragedy at White Towers. Sir Philip Clevedon—”
“A tragedy—of what nature?” I interrupted. “I have heard nothing of it. There is nothing in the papers about it, is there? Or have I missed it?”
I interposed just then because I wanted to slow down the story a little. The girl who had visited me last night was named Clevedon—Susan had just told me so—and now there was a Sir Philip Clevedon and a tragedy. I could not help wondering, of course, what connection there could be between the two, but I was determined to feel my way cautiously, resolved not to be hustled or bounced into saying more than I wanted to say. The story, whatever it was, should come from them without any help from me.
“No, Mr. Holt, I dare say you haven’t heard anything yet—not many have,” Sergeant Gamley went on. “As you say, it isn’t in the papers. You are a stranger among us—yes, yes. For the moment I had forgotten that. I knew your late respected aunt very well indeed, Mr. Holt. There was a little matter of a burglary in this very house some four years ago. Mr. Holt”—he turned to his companion—“has been living here only a very short time. He succeeded the late Mrs. Mackaluce, whose nephew he was.”
“Hadn’t you better tell Mr. Holt what has happened at White Towers?” the other man suddenly interrupted, speaking in a small, soft voice that was rather curiously in contrast with his bulk, and without any trace of impatience. He had perhaps been as willing as myself that the conversation should not be hurried.
“You can see White Towers from the upper windows of your own house, Mr. Holt,” Sergeant Gamley continued. “It lies between you and the village, a large house with an outstanding turret and two smaller towers.”
“I have seen it,” I said, “but my housekeeper said it was White Abbey, if that is the place you mean.”
“The good lady is a little mixed,” was Gamley’s reply.
He was proud of his local antiquarian knowledge and delighted to parade it, being, indeed, a frequent contributor to the local papers and regarded as an authority on county history in general and Cartordale in particular.
“White Towers,” he went on, “stands on the site of the old White Abbey. The older name survives, but the present house, of which Sir Philip Clevedon is the owner—was the owner—”
If there is such a thing as an inward smile I indulged in one then. The method was so obvious and I had so often used it myself. Pepster was allowing the other man to go maundering on while he himself kept me under careful observation. I do not, however, allow my thoughts to be written on my face, and I merely listened impassively. Pepster seemed at last to recognise that he was not likely to get much help as things were going, for he brushed Gamley aside and took up the story himself.
“The fact is, Mr. Holt,” he said bluntly, “Sir Philip Clevedon was found dead this morning—stabbed—”
He paused there and I waited, making no sign.
“With a lady’s hatpin,” he added, “a big, three-cornered affair with a silver knob.”
I had a swift vision of a white, frightened face beneath a woollen cap, but I could not quite connect the girl of the previous night’s visit with any thought of crime. She did not fit into a picture of that sort. Yet I knew as certainly as if she had told me that she was in some way mixed up with it all. And why had they come to me? Did they know of that midnight visit? I was determined that they should tell me. I would give them no lead. They must do all the talking. Pepster, after a rather lengthy pause, seemed to realise the position.
“Perhaps you wonder why we come to you,” he said in his small, soft voice. “It was merely on the chance that in your late stroll last night—”
So they did know I had been out. Had they also seen my companion?
“—Sergeant Gamley—you stood to light a cigarette and the match lit up your face.”
Pepster paused there again with an obvious appearance of waiting. Following the normal course, the person addressed should now break into more or less voluble explanations of the why and wherefore of this midnight stroll, explanations which the detective could weigh as they came forth and so form some estimate of their value or otherwise to the quest on which he was engaged. There might be nothing in it. Pepster knew full well that he would interview and interrogate scores of persons during the next few days and would have to sift a prodigious amount of chaff on the off chance of an occasional grain of wheat. In any case he had to go on sifting. That was his job.
“Seeing your name was mentioned in the way it was,” Pepster went on, “I thought you might like to explain—”
“Yes?” I said inquiringly, “explain?”
“Your name was mentioned, you know,” Pepster murmured.
“So you have told me. But what is it you wish me to explain?”
“You were out very late last night,” Pepster remarked.
“Let us be a trifle more explicit,” I said. “It comes to this—if you suspect me of having any hand in killing Sir Philip Clevedon with a three-cornered hatpin, you have no right to question me. It is against your rules, isn’t it, for you to trip me up and entrap me? If I am not under suspicion I do not quite see whither your questions lead. You may produce the handcuffs or take me into your confidence. But in any case,” I added with a quick smile, “I reserve my defence.”
“You are a bit off the rails, Mr. Holt,” Pepster returned with unabated calm. “I know of nothing which should connect you with the murder, nothing at all. But your name was mentioned, and it is my duty to question everybody who may be in the remotest degree linked up with the affair in case by any chance they may afford me information. Do you mind telling me why you were out so late last night?”
“I was taking a stroll.”
“It was a very foggy, unpleasant night.”
“It was extremely so.”
“And consequently very dark.”
“That coincides with my own recollection.”
“A stroll in a thick fog!”
“My dear sir, you ask me a question. I answer it in good faith, and you disbelieve me.”
“No, no, not at all,” Pepster said blandly. “I accept your word implicitly. It was not the object and inspiration of the—er—the stroll that interested me.”
“No? You were not wondering whether I was coming from or going to White Towers? I am glad of that,” I returned with apparently great satisfaction. “In point of fact the stroll was a mere whim on my part, induced mainly, I may say, by the hope that it would assist me to a night’s sound sleep. I had been writing. One reason why I maintain my cabbage-like existence in a God-forgotten corner of the country like this is that I may write a book. But writing renders the brain a little over-active and—”
I broke off there and waited for the other to continue.
“What I really wanted to know,” Pepster went on, “was whether you saw or met anybody during your stroll.”
“I saw nobody and met nobody,” I responded equably.
“Somebody passed a few minutes previously,” Pepster continued. “Gamley here heard them talking, a man and a woman. But he could not distinguish them. He thought no more of it at the time, of course. Nothing was known of the murder then. He recognised you only because you struck a match to light your cigarette. But you were alone.”
He nodded to Sergeant Gamley and picked up his hat.
“Would it be impertinent,” I asked, “to inquire whether you have any clue, any idea, any theory—”
“Oh, I never theorise,” Pepster replied with bland serenity. “It is only story-book detectives who theorise. Theories are too much of a luxury for professionals. Facts are my stock-in-trade. I do not travel outside those.”
“You have the hatpin,” I suggested.
“Yes,” he replied vaguely, “we have the hatpin.”
But he had evidently no intention of talking about that.
When they had gone I set myself down to concentrate my thoughts—on the girl’s woollen cap. I have so trained my faculty of observation—just as a conjurer trains his fingers or a dancer her feet—that I see everything even to the smallest detail, though often without making any conscious record of it at the time. When the girl fainted in my arms her woollen cap had fallen off. Consequently there had been no hatpin, though, as I visualised it, I remembered that on the rim of grey cloth which bound the knitted shape, there were marks showing that a hatpin had been in use. Was it with her hatpin that Sir Philip Clevedon had been done to death?
There you—this to the reader—have the case set forth, and you are in exactly the same position that I was myself—a stranger to the place and the people, knowing practically nobody and with every item of information yet to seek. But we both of us have one small advantage over the police. The latter, as far as I could make out, knew nothing of Miss Kitty Clevedon’s midnight adventure.