Chapter I

“I have never had a great opinion of our detective force here in England,” said the man in the corner, in his funny, gentle, apologetic manner, “but the way that department mismanaged the affair at Ayrsham simply passes comprehension.”

“Indeed?” I said, with all the quiet dignity I could command. “It is a pity they did not consult you in the matter, wasn’t it?”

“It is a pity,” he retorted with aggravating meekness, “that they do not use a little common sense. The case resembles that of Columbus’ egg, and is every bit as simple.

“It was one evening last October, wasn’t it? that two labourers, walking home from Ayrsham village, turned down a lane, which, it appears, is a short cut to the block of cottages some distance off, where they lodged.

“The night was very dark, and there was a nasty drizzle in the air. In the picturesque vernacular of the two labourers, ‘You couldn’t see your ’and before your eyes.’ Suddenly they stumbled over the body of a man lying right across the path.

“‘At first we thought ’e was drunk,’ explained one of them subsequently, ‘but when we took a look at ’im, we soon saw there was something very wrong. Me and my mate turned ’im over, and “foul play” we both says at once. Then we see that it was Old Man Newton. Poor chap, ’e was dead, and no mistake.’

“Old Man Newton, as he was universally called by his large circle of acquaintances, was very well known throughout the entire neighbourhood, most particularly at every inn and public bar for some miles around.

“He also kept a local sweet-stuff shop at Ayrsham. No wonder that the men were horrified at finding him in such a terrible condition; even in their uneducated minds there could be no doubt that the old man had been murdered, for his skull had been literally shattered by a fearful blow, dealt him from behind by some powerful assailant.

“Whilst the labourers were cogitating as to what they had better do next, they heard footsteps also turning into the lane, and the next moment Samuel Holder, a well-known inhabitant of Ayrsham, arrived upon the scene.

“‘Hello! is that you, Mat Newton?’ shouted Samuel, as he came near.

“‘Ay! ’tis Old Man Newton, right enough,’ replied one of the labourers, ‘but ’e won’t answer you no more.’

“Samuel Holder seemed absolutely horrified when he saw the body of Old Man Newton; he uttered various ejaculations, which the two labourers, however, did not take special notice of at the time.

“Then the three men held a brief consultation together, with the result that one of them ran back to Ayrsham village to fetch the local police, whilst the two others remained in the lane to guard the body.

“The mystery—for it seemed one from the first—created a great deal of sensation in Ayrsham and all round the neighbourhood, and much sympathy was felt for, and shown to Mary Newton, the murdered man’s only child, a young girl about two-or-three-and-twenty, who, moreover, was in ill-health.

“True, Old Man Newton was not a satisfactory protector for a young girl. He was very much addicted to drink; he neglected the little bit of local business he had; and, moreover, had recently shamefully ill-treated his daughter, the neighbours testifying to the many and loud quarrels that occurred in the small back parlour behind the sweet-stuff shop.

“A case of murder—the moment an element of mystery hovers around it—immediately excites the attention of the newspaper-reading public, who is always seeking for new sensations.

“Very soon the history of Old Man Newton and of his daughter found its way into the London and provincial dailies, and the Ayrsham murder became a topic of all-absorbing interest.

“It appears that Old Man Newton was at one time a highly respectable local tradesman, always in a very small way, as there is not much business doing at Ayrsham. It is a poor and straggling village, although its railway station is an important junction on the Midland system.

“There is some very good shooting in the neighbourhood, and about four or five years ago some of it, together with ‘The Limes,’ a pretty house just outside the village, was rented for the autumn by Mr. Ledbury and his brother.

“You know the firm of Ledbury and Co., do you not; the great small arms manufacturers? The elder Mr. Ledbury was the recipient of Birthday honours last year, and is the present Lord Walterton; his younger brother, Mervin, was in those days, and is still, a handsome young fellow in the Hussars.

“At the time—I mean about five years ago—Mary Newton was the local beauty of Ayrsham; she did a little dressmaking in her odd moments, but it appears that she spent most of her time in flirting. She was nominally engaged to be married to Samuel Holder, a young carpenter, but there was a good deal of scandal talked about her, for she was thought to be very fast; village gossip coupled her name with that of several young men in the neighbourhood, who were known to have paid the village beauty marked attention, and among these admirers of Mary Newton during the autumn of which I am speaking, young Mr. Mervin Ledbury figured conspicuously.

“Be that as it may, certain it is that Mary Newton had a very bad reputation among the scandalmongers of Ayrsham, and though everybody was shocked, no one was astonished when one fine day in the winter following she suddenly left her father and her home, and went no one knew whither. She left, it appears, a very pathetic letter behind, begging for her father’s forgiveness, and that of Samuel Holder, whom she was jilting, but she was going to marry a gentleman above them all in station, and was going to be a real lady; then only would she return home.

“A very unusual village tragedy, as you see. Four years went by, and Mary Newton did not return home. As time went by and with it no news of his daughter, Old Man Newton took her disappearance very much to heart. He began to neglect his business, and then his house, which became dirty and ill-kept by an occasional charwoman who would do a bit of promiscuous tidying for him from time to time. He was ill-tempered, sullen, and morose, and very soon became hopelessly addicted to drink.

“Then suddenly, as unexpectedly as she had gone, Mary Newton returned to her home one fine day, after an absence of four years. What had become of her in the interim, no one in the village ever knew; she was generally supposed to have earned a living by dressmaking, until her failing health had driven her well nigh to starvation, and then back to the home and her father she had so heedlessly left.

“Needless to say that all the talk of her ‘marriage with a gentleman above her in station’ was entirely at an end. As for Old Man Newton, he seems after his daughter’s return to have become more sullen and morose than ever, and the neighbours now busied themselves with talk of the fearful rows which frequently occurred in the back parlour of the little sweet-stuff shop.

“Father and daughter seemed to be leading a veritable cat-and-dog life together. Old Man Newton was hardly ever sober, and at the village inns he threw out weird and strange hints about ‘breach of promise actions with £5,000 damages, which his daughter would get, if only he knew where to lay hands upon the scoundrel.’

“He also made vague and wholly useless enquiries about young Mervin Ledbury, but in a sleepy, out-of-the-way village like Ayrsham, no one knows anything about what goes on beyond a narrow five-mile radius at most. ‘The Limes’ and the shooting were let to different tenants year after year, and neither Lord Walterton nor Mr. Mervin Ledbury had ever rented them again.”