The Ashiel mystery: A Detective Story Page 10

  CHAPTER X

  "And now," said Gimblet, "may I visit the scene of the crime?"

  Mark took him first to his uncle's bedroom; a room austere in itssimplicity, with bare white-washed walls and uncarpeted floor. No onecould have hidden a sheet of paper in that room, thought the detective,as he gazed round it, after he had looked, with a feeling akin toguilt, on the features of the dead peer. He had not known how toprotect this man from the dreadful fate that had struck him down from adirection so utterly unexpected, and he held himself, in a way,responsible for his death.

  Then young Ashiel led him away, down a wide corridor into thebilliard-room, and so into another passage, at the end of which a door ofstout and time-darkened oak gave access to the library. It creakednoisily on its hinges, as he pushed it open and ushered Gimblet in. Theystepped into a square room, comfortably furnished, with deep arm-chairs,and a large chippendale writing-table which stood at right angles to thebow window, so placed that anyone writing at it should have the lightupon his left. It was rather a dark room, the walls being lined withbooks from floor to ceiling, except at two points: opposite the window analcove, panelled in ancient oak, appeared in the wall; and above thefireplace, opposite the door, the wall was panelled in the same mannerand covered by an oil painting, representing Lord Ashiel's grandmother.The polished boards were unconcealed by any rug or carpet, and reflecteda little of the light from the window. An ominous discoloration near thewriting-table showed plainly upon them.

  In the glass of the mullioned casement was the small round hole made bythe fatal bullet.

  Gimblet glanced at the bureau on which the writing materials were set outin perfect order, and could not conceal his annoyance.

  "Everything has been moved, I see," he said. "Why couldn't they leave itas it was for a few hours longer?"

  "Nothing was touched till after the police had gone," said Mark. "Iconfess I did not think it necessary to leave things alone once they wereout of the house. Not only have the housemaids been at work in here, butI spent most of the morning here myself, going through the papers in thatbureau. Will it matter much?" He spoke with evident dismay.

  "Never mind," said Gimblet, "I suppose Macross's people photographedeverything, and I can get copies from them, I have no doubt. By the by,what did Sir David Southern say about having been in the room while youwere in bed? Did he admit it; and did he say why he moved the body?"

  "He said he'd not been near the place," replied Mark, looking moreperplexed and worried than ever. "I can't understand it at all," headded. "Why should he deny it to me?"

  Gimblet opened a drawer in the bureau. Papers filled it, tied together inbundles and neatly docketed. They seemed to be receipted bills. Heglanced at the pigeon-holes, and opened one or two more drawers.Everywhere the most fastidious order reigned.

  "You have been through all these?" he asked.

  "Yes, but there is a cupboard full in the smoking-room. I thought oflooking into those this afternoon."

  "It would be a good plan," Gimblet agreed. "Don't let me keep you," Andas the young man still lingered, "I prefer," he confessed, "to do mywork alone. If you will kindly get me a shooting-boot of Sir DavidSouthern's, I shall do better if I am left to myself."

  "If that is really the case," said Mark, "I have no choice but to leaveyou. I admit I should have liked to see your methods, but if I should bea hindrance--"

  Gimblet did not deny it, and Mark departed to fetch the boots.

  "This is not the identical pair," he said when he returned. "The policetook those; but these come from the same maker and are nearly the same,so Blanston tells me."

  "Ah, yes, Blanston," said Gimblet. "I must see him presently. Thanksvery much."

  Left alone, Gimblet examined the window, opening one of the small-panedcasements, and measuring the space between the mullions and the centralbars of iron. Satisfied as to the impossibility of any ordinary-sizedperson passing through those apertures, he took one more look round, andthen with a swift movement drew each of the heavy curtains across thebay. They did not quite meet in the middle, as Juliet had observed. Thenhe made his way out into the garden through the door just outside, at theend of the passage which led from the billiard-room to the library.

  The library was at the far end of the oldest portion of InverashielCastle. To Gimblet, examining it from the outside, it looked as if theroom had been hewn out of the solid walls of the ancient fortress; forbeyond the mullioned, seventeenth-century window, the wall turned sharplyto the left and was continued with scarce a loophole in the stupendousblocks of its surface for a distance of fifty yards or so, where it wassucceeded by the lower, less heavy battlements of the old out-works. Inthe angle formed by the turn and immediately opposite the window of thelibrary, a long flower-bed, planted with standard and other rose trees,with violas growing sparsely in between, stretched its blossoming length,and continued up to the actual stones of the library wall. At the fartherend of it, a thick hedge of holly bordered on the roses at right anglesto the end of the battlements; while the lawn on his left was spangledwith geometrically shaped beds showing elaborate arrangements ofheliotrope, ageratum, calceolarias, and other bedding-out plants.

  Gimblet walked slowly along the lawn at the edge of the bed, his eyes onthe black peaty mould, where it was visible among the flowers. Abouttwenty yards from the hedge, he stopped with a muffled exclamation. Thebed in front of him was covered with footprints of all shapes and sizes;but plainly distinguishable among the rest were the neat nail-encrustedmarks which matched the boot he held in his hand. He put it down on theground and carefully made an imprint with it in the soil, beside theexisting footmarks. It was easy to single out its fellows.

  "Two extra nails," murmured Gimblet to himself, "but otherwise, the same.Probably made on the same last."

  Stepping cautiously in the places where his predecessors had walked, hefollowed the tracks that had betrayed Sir David Southern. They werenumerous and distinct; he counted fourteen of each separate foot. FirstSir David would seem to have walked straight across the bed, thenreturned and taken up his position near the middle. He was not contentedwith that, it seemed, for he had walked backwards five or six paces andthen moved sideways again till he was exactly opposite the openingbetween the curtains. Here the ground was trampled down as if he hadseveral times shifted slightly from one place to another. Whether or nothe was exactly in line with the writing-table Gimblet could not see, asits position was hidden in the obscurity behind the drawn curtains. Itwould want a light there to prove that, thought Gimblet; still there wasno reason to doubt that it was so. There were four or five morefootmarks leading back to the lawn, and over these Gimblet stooped withparticular interest.

  With a tape measure, which he took from his pocket, he measured thedistances between the prints, entering the various figures in hisnotebook, beside carefully drawn diagrams. Then he picked his way to theedge of the lawn, and stood a moment considering.

  Apparently he was not satisfied, for presently he retraced his stepsdelicately to the middle of the bed, till he was once more just behindthe place where the earth was trodden down. After pausing there aninstant, he turned once more, and ran quickly back to the grass, withoutthis time troubling himself to step in the chain of footprints usedpreviously by the police. But he had not even yet finished; and was sooncrouching down again, with the tape measure in one hand and the notebookin the other, poring over the evidence preserved so carefully by theimpartial soil.

  At last he got up, put his measure back in his pocket, and walked slowlytowards the hedge. He had nearly reached it when something at his feetarrested his attention. He bent over it curiously.

  Near the edge of the grass and parallel to it, there was an indentation alittle over an inch wide and about the same depth. It extended in astraight line for perhaps nine inches, and what could have caused it wasa puzzle to Gimblet. The turf was unbroken, and it looked as if anoblong, narrow, heavy object had rested there, sinking a little into theground so as to leave t
his strange mark. Gimblet rubbed his foreheadpensively, as he looked at it.

  Suddenly as his introspective gaze wandered unconsciously over the groundbefore him, his attention was arrested by a second mark of the sameperplexing shape, which he could see behind a rose-bush, more thanhalf-way across the bed. Stepping as near the hedge as he could, thedetective proceeded to examine this duplicate of the riddle. It seemedabsolutely the same, though deeper, as was natural on the soft mould, andhe found, by measuring, that it lay exactly parallel to the other. Whatcould it be, he asked himself. A moment later, still another and yetstranger impression caught his eye. It was about the same width, but notmore than half as long, and rounded off at each end to an oval. It wassituated about a foot from the deep indentation and rather farther fromthe holly hedge. A tall standard rose-tree, covered with blossoms of thewhite Frau Karl Drouski rose, grew near it, interposing between it andthe house.

  Gimblet measured it with painstaking precision; then with the help ofhis measurements, he made a life-size diagram of it on the page of hisnotebook, and studied it with an expression of annoyance. He had seldomfelt more at a loss to explain anything. At length he turned and wentback towards the grass.

  "What a track I leave," he thought to himself, looking down ruefully athis own footprints. "What I want is--" He stopped abruptly as a suddenidea struck him; then a look of relief stole slowly over his face, and hepermitted himself a gratified smile, "To be sure!" he said, and seemed todismiss the subject from his mind.

  Indeed, he turned his back upon the rose-bed, and strolled away by theside of the hedge, which was of tall and wide proportions, providing aspiky, impenetrable defence against observation, from the outside, of therectangular enclosed garden. Half-way along it he came upon an archedopening. Passing through this, he found himself in an outer thicket, andimmediately upon his right hand beheld a small shed, which stood back,modest and unassuming, in a leafy undergrowth of rhododendrons.

  Gimblet pushed open the door and stepped inside.

  The place was evidently a tool-house, used by the gardeners for storingtheir implements. Rakes, spades, forks and hoes leant against the walls;a shelf held a quantity of odds and ends: trowels, seedsmen's catalogues,a pot of paint, a bundle of wooden labels, the rose of a watering-can,and a dozen other small objects. On the floor were piled boxes and emptycases; flowerpots stood beside a bag which bore the name of a patentfertilizer; a small hand mowing-machine blocked the entrance; and aplank, too long to lie flat on the ground, had been propped slantwisebetween the floor and the roof. Bunches of bass hung from nails above theshelf; and on the wall opposite, a coloured advertisement, representingphloxes of so fierce an intensity of hue that nature was put to theblush, had been tacked by some admirer of Art.

  Five minutes later, when Gimblet emerged once more into the open, hecarried in one hand a garden rake. With this he proceeded to thread hisway through the shrubbery, keeping close to the line of the holly hedge.When he thought he had gone about fifty yards, he lay down and peeredunder the leaves. The hedge was rather thinner at the bottom; and, bycarefully pushing aside a little of the glossy, prickly foliage, he wasable to make out that the end of the rose-bed he had lately examined wasseparated from him now only by the dividing barrier of the hedge. Withthe rake still in his hand, he drew himself slowly forward, gingerlyintroducing his head and arms under the holly, till he was preventedfrom going farther by the close growing trunks of the trees that formedthe hedge.

  It took some manoeuvring to insert the head of the rake through thefence, but he did it at last, and found a gap which his arms would passalso. Between, and under the lowest fringe of leaves on the farther side,he could see the track of his own footsteps, where he had walked on thebed. They were all, by an effort, within reach of his rake, and hestealthily effaced them. He could not see whether the garden was stilluntenanted, or whether the peculiar phenomenon of a rake moving withouthuman assistance was being observed by anyone from the castle. Hefervently hoped that it was not: he did not wish the attention of anyoneelse to be called to the puzzling marks that had mystified him; and, asthe only window which looked into the garden was that of the library, hethought there was a good chance that there was no one in sight.

  Cautiously and almost silently he worked his way back, and replaced therake in the tool-house where he had found it. Then he took the smalloil-can used for oiling the mowing-machine, and concealing it under hiscoat made towards the house. The little garden was still lonely anddeserted as he walked quickly over the lawn and in at the passage door.

  The library was empty as he had left it, and his first act was to drawback the curtains to their former positions on either side of the window.Then he went to the door, and, with a glance to right and left along thepassage, and an ear bent for any approaching footstep, he quickly andeffectually oiled the hinges and lock, so that the door closednoiselessly and without protest. When he was quite satisfied on thispoint, he shut it gently, and took back the oil-can to the shed.

  "Now," said he to himself, "for the gun-room."

  He took up Sir David Southern's shooting-boots, which he had left in thetool-house during his last proceedings, and made his way through thebilliard-room into the main corridor beyond. On his right, through anopen door, he peeped into a large room, obviously the drawing-room, andsaw that it looked on to the front of the house. The room wore a forlornaspect; no one, apparently, had taken the trouble to put it straightsince the night of the tragedy. The blinds had been drawn down, but thefurniture seemed awry as if chairs had been pushed back hastily, a littlecard table still displayed a game of patience half set out, and even thedead flowers in the glasses had not been thrown away.

  The air was stuffy in the extreme, and Gimblet, with a disgusted sniff,pulled aside one of the blinds and threw open the window. But all at oncea thought seemed to strike him. For a moment he stood irresolute, then heslowly closed the casement again, but without latching it, and afterfrowning at it thoughtfully walked away. He went back into the hall.

  Opposite, across the corridor, rose the main staircase, wide andimposing; on each side of it a smaller passage led away at right anglesto the entrance, the right-hand one giving access to rooms in the newfront of the castle, one of which he knew to be the dining-room. Helistened for a minute outside a door beyond it, and heard the sound ofrustling papers; the smell of tobacco came to him through the key-hole.It was plain that here was the smoking-room, and that the new Lord Ashielwas at that moment engaged in it, and deep in his uncle's papers.

  The little detective, as he had said, preferred to work without anaudience when he could, so he left Mark to his search, and stole silentlyaway down the passage.

  He passed two more rooms, and paused at the last door, opposite the footof a winding stair.

  This, from what Juliet had said, must be the door of the gun-room.

  The door opened readily at his touch, and he stepped inside and shut itbehind him.

  It was a small bare room, with one large deal table in the middle of it.Gun-cases and wooden cartridge-boxes were ranged on the linoleum-coveredfloor, and three glass-fronted gun-cabinets were hung upon the walls.One, the smallest of these, was of a different wood from the others, andbore in black letters the initials D. S.

  Three or four guns were ranged in it: two 12-bore shot-guns, an air-gun,and a little 20-bore. Another rack was empty; no doubt it had held theMannlicher rifle, which the police had carried away to use as evidencein their case for the prosecution. The door was locked and there was nosign of a key.

  Gimblet turned to the other cupboards.

  There were more weapons here, and a few minutes' examination showed himthat, as Mark had said, he and his uncle were less particular as to wheretheir guns were kept, for the first two that the detective glanced atbore Lord Ashiel's initial, and the next was an old air-gun with M. McC.engraved on a silver disk at the stock.

  Side by side were the rifles used by the uncle and nephew for stalking,Gimblet knew from Mark that the Mannl
icher was his, while Lord Ashiel hadapparently used a Mauser or Ross sporting rifle, as there was one of eachin the case.

  Gimblet lifted down the Mannlicher and laid it on the table. This, then,was the kind of weapon with which the deed had been done. It was a .355Mannlicher Schonauer sporting weapon of the latest pattern. He opened itand examined the mechanism, which he soon grasped. He squinted down theglistening tunnel of the barrel and even closely scrutinized theworkmanship of the exterior, repressing a shudder at the meretriciousdesign of the chasing on the lock, and passing his fingers caressinglyover the wood of which the stock was made. It shone with a rich bloom, assmooth and even as polished marble, except at the butt end which wascriss-crossed roughly to prevent slipping; but wood in any shape has ahomely friendly feeling, as different from any the polisher can impart toa piece of cold stone as the forests, where it once stood, upright andlofty, are from the inhospitable rocks on the peaks above them.

  These unpractical reflections flitted through the detective's mind,together with others of a less fantastic nature, as he put the rifle backin the rack he had taken it from. He closed the glass doors of thecabinet, leaving them unlocked, as he had found them. Then, going back tothe table, he took an empty pill-box from his pocket, and with the utmostcare swept into it a trace of dust from off the bare deal top.

  There was barely enough to darken the cardboard at the bottom of the box,but he looked at it, before putting on the lid, with an expression ofsome satisfaction.