CHAPTER VIII

The Broken Window

When Humblethorne, on leaving Evelyn, descended once more to the hall, he found his tea set in readiness for him at the end opposite the stairs. He felt that he had earned it, and sat down in one of the big armchairs facing the fireplace, well satisfied with his afternoon’s work. Presently through the front door on his left Birts entered and, seeing him, at once came to tell of his afternoon’s activities. The tale of the account he had given to a friendly reporter he did not think it necessary to repeat—that had not had much to do with Humblethorne; but he had an entirely negative report of the inquiries he had been pursuing in the grounds to deliver.

“There hasn’t been a soul hanging round that any one admits to seeing,” was his conclusion.

“And you didn’t find any traces—not a pair of shoes, for example?” inquired Humblethorne with a light, half-amused glance at him.

“A pair of shoes,” repeated Birts in surprise. “No, I certainly haven’t seen any.”

“That’s a pity, for I particularly want to find some.”

“Give me their description,” said Birts, taking out his notebook.

Humblethorne laughed. “I believe I could describe them fairly accurately,” he said; “but that won’t help you to find them. I’ve looked in all the likely places already.”

“You mean,” remarked Birts after he had considered this remark, “that they’ve been hidden away?”

“Hidden away or destroyed.”

“If they’ve been destroyed, that doesn’t give us a chance.”

“I agree—if they have been destroyed. But shoes aren’t easy things to destroy without leaving any traces, especially in summer when there are no fires. No, depend upon it, they have been hidden and well hidden: the point is, where?”

“Just so,” remarked Birts. “It’s a large place and plenty of rabbit-holes and the like in the woods.”

“When I was down at lunch, where were you, Birts?”

“I was here all the time till Fairlie came about that window, and then here again after that.”

“Any one come downstairs?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, as you say, it’s a big place.” Humblethorne relapsed into silence which remained unbroken for a few moments, each man pursuing his own train of thought.

“I was thinking, if you agreed, sir,” said Birts at last, “of making inquiries in the village and neighbourhood this evening.”

“Quite unnecessary; and, besides, I want you here.”

Birts stared at him in deep astonishment and Humblethorne allowed himself the gratification of watching him with a little smile.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” said Birts at length. “Unnecessary—does that mean you’ve traced him? And what can I do here?”

“I want you to stay here to-night,” repeated Humblethorne. “You have a man with the body too, haven’t you? Well, I want one of you to remain on duty all the time and make sure that nobody leaves the house without your knowing all about it. I may be quite wrong, but I think there’s some one in this house with a pair of shoes and a guilty conscience to dispose of, and I don’t want that done without our knowing all about it. See?”

Birts struggled manfully to appear as if he saw, but he was too full of curiosity to conceal it. “I see, sir,” he said, “of course exactly what you want me to do, but I can’t say as I quite follow what you have in your mind. When you say inquiries are unnecessary do you mean as you know who did it?”

Humblethorne paused. It was a pleasant moment for him, and he consciously prolonged it. At last, leaning back in his chair, he answered the eager question.

“Yes, I know,” he said. “I know in spite of what has been done since to prevent my knowing. It only remains to put my hand on him.”

“Oh!” Astonishment at the beginning of the sentence mingled with disappointment at its conclusion. “But you know him?” Birts went on. “Who is he? I’ll find him for you all right. I know every one about here.”

“All in good time,” replied Humblethorne, who was willing to gratify the sergeant’s curiosity to a certain extent, but had received too evident a proof of his lack of ability to confide in him unduly at this stage. “If you want to know, he’s a youngish man, clean-shaven, rather over six foot I should say, thin, has blue eyes, and fairly dark brown hair a little grey above the ears.” It was not quite fair of Humblethorne; he was a _poseur_ and he knew it. He was ascribing to his own cleverness what was really due entirely to his luck, but the astonished admiration of Birts was an incitement he could not resist.

“You’re laughing at me, sir?” exclaimed the sergeant. “You can’t have found out all that this afternoon; it beats reason. And it isn’t as if you lived in these parts and knew every one.”

“Indeed, I am not laughing at you, Birts,” protested Humblethorne a little more warmly than he would have spoken if he had not been so nearly doing it. “That is a fairly exact description of the man who got into the house last night——”

“Yes, through that little window,” interpolated Birts, anxious to remind Humblethorne that he had at any rate reasoned the crime out from that start.

“What little window? Oh, in the pantry: I’d forgotten about that. No, he didn’t get in there.”

“Not there! Why——”

“That has nothing whatever to do with the case. I never really supposed it had,” interrupted Humblethorne decisively. “That might have got broken in a score of ways; there’s not the smallest evidence that any one got in through it, and there’s every reason to suppose that no one did.”

“How did he get in then?” Birts was nettled at this drastic sweeping away of his one theory and spoke with the air of a man putting an unanswerable conundrum.

“Through the drawing-room,” replied Humblethorne shortly.

“Through the drawing-room!” repeated Birts incredulously. “But the shutters were all up; they hadn’t been touched either, for I looked at them myself when I got here.”

“It is possible to open them from inside,” remarked Humblethorne gravely, “and that is the reason I am now looking for a pair of evening shoes. If I can find them, I know all I want to know about the man on whose story so much depends.”

“Mr. Castle!” gasped Birts. “You don’t mean——”

“I mean nothing,” broke in Humblethorne, irritated that he had been led on to say so much, “and take care you say nothing yet to any one of what I’ve been saying—not to any one.”

“I’ll keep my mouth shut all right, sir, never fear,” said Birts with sudden sternness: he recognized that in the eyes of his superior he had allowed himself to be made a fool of by one of the criminals, and he was full of personal as well as professional resentment.

“Good; I trust you, remember,” said Humblethorne, rising, “or I wouldn’t have told you so much until the chain of evidence was complete. Until it is, by the way, I think I’ll take charge of the weapon. I’m afraid we shan’t learn much from it, though: that kind of florid silver work is pretty hopeless for finger-prints. Pity it isn’t an ordinary smooth box; if it was, it could tell us all we most want to know.” He went over to the sheet, lifted it, and with great precautions not to interfere with any finger-prints which might be discoverable on it removed and wrapped up the cigarette box. “Now I’m off, Birts,” he said; “remember what I told you.”

They moved off towards the door, Birts saying grimly, “I don’t think as I’m likely to forget.”

“I may not be here to-morrow morning,” added Humblethorne, in a lower tone, “I’ve a few inquiries to put through, and they may take a little time.”

“I can’t bring to mind any one about here who exactly fits that description you give me,” remarked Birts ruminatively; “let’s see——”

“Don’t worry about it, Birts; I know my man and I can trace him. Also I want to try and see if this cigarette box has anything to say. Well, so long—and keep your eyes open.”

Now, as related at the end of the last chapter, Evelyn had found it impossible to rest, torn as she was with the conviction she could not dispel, that Celia, her own bosom friend, held the key to the dark mystery overshadowing the house. She had reached a pitch of weariness, mental even more than physical, when to keep still had become intolerable; she tried to read but could not fix her thoughts on the page. At last she left her room in despair and, drawn by a hateful but irresistible magnet, slowly descended the stairs towards the hall. When she reached the landing and turned to come down the straight flight of stairs to the spot where the body had been found, she saw the two men sitting with their backs to her, engaged in conversation. She stopped in some annoyance, having no wish to keep on running across Humblethorne, and was about to retire as quietly as she had come, when she heard his protest: “Indeed, I am not laughing at you, Birts; that is a fairly exact description of the man who got into the house last night,” and Birts’s self-conscious interpolation, “Yes, through that little window.” “Little window?” she thought, “why ‘little’?” Humblethorne’s rejoinder riveted her attention: it was the first she had heard of the broken pantry window. She stole down a couple of steps and heard every word of the remainder of their discussion.

It was with a sudden shock for which she was wholly unprepared that she heard the words “the man on whose story so much depends.” After the momentary suspicion of Philip Castle of which she had been immediately ashamed she had entirely put him out of her head in connexion with the tragedy; all her mind was centred on the strange manner and wild words of Celia. When she had discovered the marks on the drawing-room window she had been acting on a mere impulse and, concentrating simply on the one fact before her eyes, had gone out to verify her discovery without reasoning beyond it. Humblethorne’s incautious comment on the character of those marks had turned her reason onto the dreadful significance which lay behind: the man who had left those footprints had been waiting to be let in, there was no hope of doubting the conclusion. In a flash her reason had been forced over her love to the truth. “John was——” Celia had begun in her extraordinary agitation at the idea of sending for him now—“here and I let him in,” finished reason in spite of all Evelyn could do to drive the thought away. It had swept in, overwhelmingly reinforced, at the way Celia received the news of Humblethorne’s visit to John’s room. So it was with a mixture of relief and indignation that she learnt that it was not Celia, but Philip who lay under the dreadful suspicion. That was ridiculous—and it was unjust.

As Humblethorne rose to his feet, she slipped upstairs again, recalled to the part of eavesdropper she was playing. She was above and out of sight when the two men turned and went over to the sheet, but heard Humblethorne’s remarks about the cigarette box and then his announcement of departure. The possibility that it might be her finger-marks which would be found on the box suddenly crossed her mind, but more lasting was the memory of the original little puzzle which had started her on her career of investigation. She had forgotten all about it in the turmoil of her emotions, but now it came back to perplex her; there was probably some very obvious solution, but she resolved to ask Philip at the first opportunity if he had moved the box.

Though she dreaded with all her strength the terrible solution which her reason told her was the right one, she continued to hope that something would be found wholly to falsify it: this fact, new to her, of the broken pantry window might possibly help to establish faith in triumph over reason. Humblethorne’s rather contemptuous dismissal of it did not promise well, but still she felt she must find out about it for herself, if only to divert her mind from facts which it was torture to contemplate.

She heard the hall door close as Humblethorne took his departure and after a moment’s hesitation came downstairs again. Birts was standing in the hall, gloomily surveying the carpet. He was not in a good humour; his faith had been callously imposed upon, he considered, and he had the uncomfortable feeling that when all the facts came to the ears of his chief he would be lucky if he escaped merely with a reprimand. He looked up sharply when he heard her tread; then, seeing who it was, he allowed his official manner to relax a little: he had known her these twenty years.

“Oh, it’s you, Miss Evelyn, is it?” he said. “Take care as you come by, miss; nothing’s to be moved, not on no account.”

“No, I see,” she answered, skirting the wall scrupulously. She looked keenly at Birts when she was well in the hall and, though she did not follow all his thoughts, made a very shrewd guess at his general humour. “You look tired, Birts,” she said sympathetically; “it’s the responsibility, I suppose. I hope Fairlie’s looking after you all right; did he bring you any tea?”

“Well, miss,” replied Birts, gratified, “I haven’t had any and that’s a fact. It isn’t Fairlie’s fault; I was out and come in too late; the inspector had some all right.”

“Oh, but that’s not fair; why should he have his and you not? I’ll go and see about it at once.”

“Don’t trouble, miss; I’ll ask Fairlie for a cup when I see him.”

“It’s no trouble: every one has to do what they can to help at a time like this.”

She smiled at him and went through the dining-room to the pantry door, glad to have so easily found an excuse for going there. The door stood ajar and she pushed it open to find the footman alone in it, humming a tune. “Oh, Alfred,” she said, “get a cup of tea and some bread and butter for Sergeant Birts; he’s in the hall, and has had nothing.”

“Very good, miss,” returned the lad.

“Hullo!” she went on with well-sustained naturalness, “how did that little window get broken?” She crossed casually to look at it.

“That’s where the fellow got in who killed Sir Roger, miss,” replied Alfred with interest.

“Really! That’s very interesting,” she replied. She examined the sill, the glass, the lintel and the litter on the floor with an attention she tried to make appear that of the purest curiosity. The scratches on the sill interested her most. “What are these?” she asked.

“Them’s ’is boots,” Alfred answered, “’ob-nailed boots, so Birts ses; I ain’t much ’and at following such things meself.”

“Nor I,” she answered slowly.

Like Humblethorne, she could see no other marks suggestive of an entrance, but, unlike Humblethorne, that in itself seemed to her rather interesting. In common with all but the best brains in his profession Humblethorne had one characteristic which acted as a limitation; he was able to preserve a completely open mind at the start of an inquiry, but when he had collected sufficient facts to justify the deliberate adoption of a theory he was prone to treat as of little importance new facts which did not square with that theory; in other words, when once his thoughts had taken to running along a fixed channel facts were apt to get twisted, instead of the channel being twisted or changed to include them. He saw nothing to make probable Birts’s facile theory; he knew a great deal to make it improbable. When further search revealed clues which confirmed his theory in every respect and in addition he had the very definite identification of the stranger at the inn and John Penterton, the broken window became to him of trifling importance: he had enough to go upon with assurance without it. But to Evelyn, who embraced no theory and longed to be able to refute the conviction forced upon her, it appeared in a different light. The scratches Humblethorne soon decided had not been made by a boot, not even a hobnailed one, and it was for boot-marks that he was looking: Evelyn, who was not looking for anything, did not ignore them because to her too they seemed too regular to have been made by boots. She did not understand them and continued to wonder what had caused them.

“There seem to be a good many things I don’t understand,” she thought to herself as, having reminded Alfred about the tea, she returned to the hall, “but after all that is hardly to be wondered at.”

“I’ve told them to bring you some tea, Birts,” she said, “and something to eat; I expect you’ll be glad of it.”

“Thank you, miss; it’s very kind of you.”

“By the way, I see there’s a window broken in the pantry,” she remarked casually.

“You didn’t touch nothing, I hope,” exclaimed Birts hastily.

“I was careful not to,” she answered; “Alfred told me it was where the—the man got in last night; so of course I didn’t.”

“That’s what I says,” said Birts, “but the inspector, he doesn’t think it has anything——” he broke off, remembering Humblethorne’s injunction.

“Well,” remarked Evelyn lightly, “I’ve no doubt he’s very clever, but all the same it seems a little curious to me. Doesn’t it to you?”

“I must say as it does,” confessed Birts.

“When did you find it was broken?” she asked.

“I should say it was a little after two o’clock; at least the inspector had been gone to lunch about half an hour.”

“Two o’clock this afternoon? Not till then? But didn’t you see it early this morning? I thought all the doors and windows had been examined then.”

A glance at Birts’s face gave her her answer; he might have examined all the more obvious ways into the house, but it was evident that there had been some gaps. She added quickly, “No, I expect you had plenty to see to in here. What a horrible business it is!”

Just then Alfred appeared with a tray and Evelyn, having learnt everything that Birts was likely to tell her, left him to enjoy his tea in peace. She went slowly to her room, turning over and over in her mind the new facts on which she had lighted. Some one might have got in by that window; she wished her mind would think that some one had, for he could have entered there unassisted. But her mind did not think so and she could not force it to; the scratches were too obvious somehow. Close on the heels of this thought came the conclusion—some one had marked the sill in order to make it seem the place where the entrance was effected. Once more she was brought face to face with evidence from which her only wish was to find an escape. This last was worst of all, arguing a deliberate intention to mislead, a desire to cover up the admittance and lay a false trail which could only have taken shape after the deed. This went beyond all her former fears and chilled her to the bottom of her heart.