Part 10

"Very well, now to business. I got a certain amount of literature on the case before I left town, and Miss Peterkin gave me some very valuable additions in the shape of the accounts in the local papers. Are there any facts known to you or the police beyond those I have read?"

Simon considered the question and then shook his head.

"None that I can think of, and I fear the local police will be able to add no information that can assist you."

"They are the usual not too intelligent country bobbies, I suppose?"

"Quite so," said Simon.

"In that case," asked Mr. Carrington, still in his easy voice, but with a quick turn of his eyeglass towards the lawyer, "why was no outside assistance called in at once?"

For a moment Simon Rattar's satisfaction with his visitor seemed to be diminished. He seemed, in fact, a little disconcerted, and his reply again became little more than a grunt.

"Quite satisfied with them," seemed to be the reading of his answer.

"Well," said Carrington, "no doubt you knew best, Mr. Rattar."

His eyes thoughtfully followed the smoke of his cigarette upwards for a moment, and then he said:

"That being so, my first step had better be to visit Keldale House and see whether it is still possible to find any small point the local professionals have overlooked."

Mr. Rattar seemed to disapprove of this.

"Nothing to discover," said he. "And they will know what you have come about."

Mr. Carrington smiled.

"I think, Mr. Rattar, that, on the whole, my appearance provokes no great amount of suspicion."

"Your appearance, no," admitted Simon, "but--"

"Well, if I go to Keldale armed with a card of introduction from you, to make enquiry about the shootings, I think I can undertake to turn the conversation on to other matters without exciting suspicion."

"Conversation with whom?" enquired the lawyer sceptically.

"I had thought of Mr. Bisset, the butler."

"Oh--" began Mr. Rattar with a note of surprise, and then pulled himself up.

"Yes," smiled Mr. Carrington, "I have picked up a little about the household. My friends of last night were exceedingly communicative--very gossipy indeed. I rather gather that omniscience is Mr. Bisset's foible, and that he is not averse from conversation."

The look in Simon's eye seemed to indicate that his respect for this easy-going young man was increasing; though whether his liking for him was also increased thereby was not so manifest. His reply was again a mere grunt.

"Well, that can easily be arranged," said Carrington, "and it is obviously the first thing to do."

He blew a ring of smoke from his lips, skilfully sent a second ring in chase of it, and then turning his monocle again on the lawyer, enquired (though not in a tone that seemed to indicate any very acute interest in the question):

"Who do you think yourself murdered Sir Reginald Cromarty?"

XXIII

SIMON'S VIEWS

"Well," said Mr. Rattar deliberately, "I think myself that the actual evidence is very slight and extremely inclusive."

"You mean the direct evidence afforded by the unfastened window, position of the body, table said to have been overturned, and so forth?"

"Exactly. That evidence is slight, but so far as it goes it seems to me to point to entry by the door and to the man having been in the house for some little time previously."

"Well?" said Carrington in an encouraging voice.

"So much for the direct evidence. I may be wrong, but that is my decided opinion. No bad characters are known to the police to have been in the county at that time, and there was no robbery."

"Apparently confirming the direct evidence?"

"Decidedly confirming it--or so it seems to me."

"Then you think there is something in the popular theory that the present baronet and Miss Farmond were the guilty parties?"

Simon was silent for a moment, but his face was unusually expressive.

"I fear it looks like it."

"An unpleasant conclusion for you to come to," observed Mr. Carrington. "You are the family lawyer, I understand."

"Very unpleasant," Mr. Rattar agreed. "But, of course, there is no absolute proof."

"Naturally; or they'd have been arrested by now. What sort of a fellow is Sir Malcolm?"

"My own experience of him," said the lawyer drily, "is chiefly confined to his visits to my office to borrow money of me."

"Indeed?" said Carrington with interest. "That sort of fellow, is he? He writes, I understand."

Simon nodded.

"Any other known vices?"

"I know little about his vices except that they cost him considerably more than he could possibly have paid, had it not been for Sir Reginald's death."

"So the motive is plain enough. Any evidence against him?"

Simon pursed his lips and became exceedingly grave.

"When questioned next morning by the superintendent of police and myself, he led us to understand that he had retired to bed early and was in no position to hear or notice anything. I have since found that he was in the habit of sitting up late."

"'In the habit,'" repeated Carrington quickly. "But you don't suggest he sat up that night in particular?"

"Undoubtedly he sat up that night."

"But merely as he always did?"

"He might have been waiting for his chance on the previous nights."

Carrington smoked thoughtfully for a moment and then asked:

"But there is no evidence that he left his room or was heard moving about that night, is there?"

"There is not yet any positive evidence. But he was obviously in a position to do so."

"Was his room near or over the library?"

"N--no," said the fiscal, and there seemed to be a hint of reluctance in his voice.

Carrington glanced at him quickly and then gazed up at the ceiling.

"What sort of a girl is Miss Farmond?" he enquired next.

"She is the illegitimate daughter of a brother of the late Sir Reginald's."

Carrington nodded.

"So I gathered from the local gossips. But that fact is hardly against her, is it?"

"Why not?"

Carrington looked a little surprised.

"Girls don't generally murder their uncles for choice, in my own experience; especially if they are also their benefactors."

"This was hardly the usual relationship," said the lawyer with a touch of significance.

"Do you suggest that the irregularity is apt to breed crime?"

Simon's grunt seemed to signify considerable doubt as to the morals of the type of relative.

"But what sort of girl is she otherwise?"

"I should call Miss Farmond the insinuating type. A young man like yourself would probably find her very attractive--at first anyhow."

Mr. Carrington seemed to ponder for a moment on this suggestive description of Miss Farmond's allurements. And then he asked:

"Is it the case that she is engaged to Sir Malcolm?"

"Certainly."

"You are sure?"

Something in his voice seemed to make the lawyer reflect.

"Is it called in question?" he asked.

Carrington shook his head.

"By nobody who has spoken to me on the subject. But I understand that it has not yet been announced."

"No," said Simon. "It was a secret engagement; and marriage would have been impossible while Sir Reginald lived."

"So there we get the motive on her part. And you yourself, Mr. Rattar, _know_ both these young people, and you believe that this accusation against them is probably well founded?"

"I believe, Mr. Carrington, that there is no proof and probably never will be any; but all the evidence, positive and negative, together with the question of motive, points to nobody else. What alternative is possible?"

"That is the difficulty, so far," agreed Carrington, but his thoughts at the moment seemed to be following his smoke rings up towards the ceiling. For a few moments he was silent, and then he asked:

"What other people benefited by the will and to what extent?"

The lawyer went to his safe, brought out the will, and read through the legacies to the servants, mentioning that the chauffeur and gardener were excluded by circumstances from suspicion.

"That leaves Mr. Bisset," observed Carrington. "Well, I shall be seeing him to-morrow. Any other legatees who might conceivably have committed the crime?"

Simon looked serious and spoke with a little reluctance that he seemed to make no effort to conceal.

"There is a relative of the family, a Mr. Cromarty of Stanesland, who certainly benefited considerably by the will and who certainly lives in the neighbourhood--if one once admitted the possibility of the crime being committed by some one outside the house. And I admit that it is a possibility."

"Ah!" said Carrington. "I heard about him last night, but so far suspicion certainly hasn't fastened on him. What sort of a fellow is he?"

"He has lived the greater part of his life in the wilder parts of America--rather what one might call a rough and ready customer."

It was apparent that Mr. Carrington, for all his easy-going air, was extremely interested.

"This is quite interesting!" he murmured. "To what extent did he benefit by the will?"

"L1,200."

"L1,200!" Carrington repeated the words with an odd intonation and stared very hard at the lawyer. There was no doubt that his interest was highly excited now, and yet it seemed to be rather a different quality of interest this time.

"A considerable sum," said Simon.

"That is the only point about it which strikes you?"

Simon was manifestly puzzled.

"What else?" he enquired.

"No coincidence occurs to you?"

The lawyer's puzzled look remained, and the next instant Carrington broke into a hearty laugh.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Rattar," he cried. "What an owl I am! I have just been dealing lately with a case where that sum of money was involved, and for the moment I mixed the two up together!" He laughed again, and then resuming his businesslike air, asked: "Now, what else about this Mr. Cromarty? You say he is a relation. Near or distant?"

"Oh, quite distant. Another branch altogether."

"Younger branch, I presume."

"Poorer but not younger. He is said to be the head of the family."

"Really!" exclaimed Mr. Carrington, and this information seemed to have set him thinking again. "He is the head of the family, and I hear he took up the case with some energy."

Simon's grunt seemed to be critical.

"He got in our way," he said.

"Got in your way, did he?"

Carrington was silent for a few moments, and then said:

"Well I am afraid I have taken up a great deal of your time. May I have a line of introduction to Mr. Bisset before I go?"

While the line was being written he walked over to the fire and cleared the stump of his last cigarette out of the holder. This operation was very deliberately performed, and through it his eyes seemed scarcely to note what his hands were doing.

He put the note in his pocket, shook hands, and then, just as he was going, he said:

"I want to understand the lie of the land as exactly as possible. Your own attitude, so far has been, I take it--no proof, therefore no arrest; but a nasty family scandal left festering, so you decided to call me in. Now, I want to know this--is there anybody else in the neighbourhood who knows that I have been sent for?"

Mr. Rattar replied with even more than his usual deliberation, and after what is said by foreigners to be the national habit, his reply consisted of another question.

"You say that your employer made a particular point of having his identity concealed?"

"Yes, a particular point."

"Doesn't that answer your question, Mr. Carrington?"

"No," said Carrington, "not in the least. I am asking now whether there is any other employer in this neighbourhood besides yourself. And I may say that I ask for the very good reason that it might be awkward for me if there were and I didn't know him, while if I did know him, I could consult with him if it happened to be advisable. Is there any one?"

He seemed to hang on the lawyer's answer, and Simon to dislike making the answer.

Yet when he did make it, it was quite emphatic.

"No," he replied.

"That's all right then," said Mr. Carrington with his brightest smile. "Good afternoon, Mr. Rattar."

The smile faded from his ingenuous face the moment the door had closed behind him, and it was a very thoughtful Mr. Carrington who slowly went downstairs and strolled along the pavement. If his morning's interview had puzzled him, his afternoon's interview seemed to have baffled him completely. He even forgot to relapse into the thoughtless young sportsman when he entered the hotel, and his friend the manageress, after eyeing him with great surprise, cried archly:

"A penny for your thoughts, Mr. Carrington! About shooting or fishing, I'm sure!"

Mr. Carrington recovered his pleasant spirits instantly.

"Quite right," said he. "I was thinking about fishing--in very deep waters."

XXIV

MR. BISSET'S ASSISTANT

At eleven o'clock next morning a motor car drove up to Keldale House and an exceedingly affable and pleasing stranger delivered a note from Mr. Simon Rattar to Mr. James Bisset. Even without an introduction, Mr. Carrington would have been welcome, for though Mr. Bisset's sway over Keldale House was by this time almost despotic, he had begun to find that despotism has its lonely side, and to miss "the gentry." With an introduction, Mr. Carrington quickly discovered that Mr. Bisset and the mansion he supervised were alike entirely at his disposal.

The preliminary discussion on the sporting possibilities of the estate and the probability of its being let next season impressed Mr. Bisset very favourably indeed with his visitor; and then when the conversation had passed very naturally to the late tragedy in the house, he was still further delighted to find that Mr. Carrington not only shared his own detective enthusiasm, but was vastly interested in his views on this particular mystery.

"Come along here, sir," said he, "we can just have a look at the library and I'll explain to you the principles of the thing."

"I'd like to see the actual scene of the crime immensely!" cried Mr. Carrington eagerly. "You are sure that Lady Cromarty won't object?"

"Not her," said Bisset. "She's never in this part of the house now. She'll be none the wiser anyhow."

This argument seemed to assure Mr. Carrington completely, and they went along to the library.

"Now," began Bisset, "I'll just explain to you the haill situation. Here where I'm laying this sofie cushion was the corp. Here where I'm standing the now was the wee table, and yon's the table itself."

To the disquisition that followed, Mr. Carrington listened with the most intelligent air. Bisset had by this time evolved quite a number of new theories, but the one feature common to them all was the hypothesis that the murderer must have come in by the window and was certainly not an inmate of the household. His visitor said little till he had finished, and then he remarked:

"Well, Bisset, you don't seem to put much faith in the current theory, I see."

"Meaning that Sir Malcolm and Miss Farmond were concerned?" said Bisset indignantly. "That's just the ignorance of the uneducated masses, sir! The thing's physically impossible, as I've just been demonstrating!"

Carrington smiled and gently shook his head.

"I don't know much about these things," said he, "but I'm afraid I can't see the physical impossibility. It was very easy for any one in the house to come downstairs and open that door, and if Sir Reginald knew him, it would account for his silence and the absence of any kind of a struggle."

"But yon table and the windie being unfastened! And the mud I picked up myself--and the hearth brush!"

"They scarcely make it impossible," said Carrington.

"Well, sir," demanded the butler, "what's your own theory?"

Carrington said nothing for several minutes. He strolled up and down the room, looked at the table and the window, and at last asked:

"Do you remember quite distinctly what Sir Reginald looked like when you found him--the position of the body--condition of the clothes--and everything else?"

"I see him lying there every night o' my life, just as plain as I see you now!"

"The feet were towards the door, just as though he had been facing the door when he was struck down?"

"Aye, but then my view is the body was moved----"

He was interrupted by a curious performance on Mr. Carrington's part. His visitor was in fact stretching himself out on the floor on the spot where Sir Reginald was found.

"He lay like this?" he asked.

"Aye, practically just like that, sir."

"Now, Bisset," said the recumbent visitor, "just have a very good look at me and tell me if you notice any difference between me and the body of Sir Reginald."

Bisset looked for a few seconds and then exclaimed:

"Your clothes are no alike! The master's coat was kind of pulled up like about his shoulders and neck. Oh, and I mind now the tag at the back for hanging it up was broken and sticking out."

Carrington sprang to his feet with a gleam in his eye.

"The tag was not broken before he put on the coat?"

"It certainly was not that! But what's your deduction, sir?"

Carrington smiled at him.

"What do you think yourself, Bisset? You saw how I threw myself down quite carelessly and yet my coat wasn't pulled up like that."

"God, sir!" cried the butler. "You mean the corp had been pulled along the floor by the shoulders!"

Carrington nodded.

"Then he had been killed near the windie!"

"Not too fast, not too fast!" smiled Carrington. "Your own first statement which I happened to read in a back number of the newspaper the other day said that the windows were all fastened when Sir Reginald came into the room."

"Ah, but I've been altering my opinion on that point, sir."

Carrington shook his head.

"I'm afraid because a fastened window doesn't suit your theory."

"But the master might have opened it to him, thinking it was some one he knew."

"Sounds improbable," said Carrington thoughtfully.

"But not just absolutely impossible."

"No," said Carrington, still very thoughtfully, "not impossible."

"Sir Reginald might never have seen it was a stranger till the man was fairly inside."

Carrington smiled and shook his head.

"Thin, Bisset; very thin. Why need the man have been a stranger at all?"

Bisset's face fell.

"But surely you're not believing yon story that it was Sir Malcolm and Miss Farmond after a'?"

His visitor stood absolutely silent for a full minute. Then he seemed suddenly to banish the line of thought he was following.

"Is it quite certain that those two are engaged?" he asked.

Bisset's face showed his surprise at the question.

"They all say so," said he.

"Have either of them admitted it?"

"No, sir."

"Why don't they acknowledge it now and get married?"

"They say it's because they daurna for fear of the scandal."

"'They' say again!" commented Carrington. "But, look here, Bisset, you have been in the house all the time. Did you think they were engaged?"

"Honestly, sir, I did not. There's nae doubt Sir Malcolm was sweet on the young lady, but deil a sign of sweetness on him did I ever see in her!"

"Do they correspond now?"

Bisset shook his head.

"Hardly at a'. But of course folks just say they are feared to now."

"Has anybody asked either of them if they are--or ever were--engaged?"

"No, sir. But if they denied it now, folks would just say the same thing."

"Yes. I see--naturally. Lady Cromarty believes it and is keeping Miss Farmond under her eye, the gossips tell me. Is that so?"

"Oh, that's true right enough, sir."

"Who told Lady Cromarty?"

"That I do not know, sir."

Again the visitor seemed to be thinking, and again to cast his thoughts aside and take up a new aspect of the case.

"Supposing," he suggested, "we were to draw the curtains and light these candles for a few minutes? It might help us to realise the whole thing."

This suggestion pleased Mr. Bisset greatly and in a minute or two the candles were lit and the curtains drawn.

"Put the table where it stood," said Carrington. "Now which was Sir Reginald's chair? This?"

He sat in it and looked slowly round the darkened, candle-lit library.

"Now," said he, "suppose I was Sir Reginald, and there came a tap at that window, what would I do?"

"If you were the master, sir, you'd go straight to the windie to see who it was."

"I wouldn't get in a funk and ring the bell?"

"No fears!" said Bisset confidently.

"And any one who knew Sir Reginald at all well could count on his not giving the alarm then if they tapped at the window?"

"They could that."

Carrington looked attentively towards the window.

"Those curtains hang close against the window, I see," he observed. "A very slight gap in them would enable any one to get a good view of the room, if the blinds were not down. Were the blinds down that night?"

Bisset slapped his knee.

"The middle blind wasn't working!" he cried. "What a fool I've been not to think on the extraordinar' significance of that fac'! My, the deductions to be drawn! You've made it quite clear now, sir. The man tappit at that windie----"

"Steady, steady!" said Carrington, smiling and yet seriously. "Don't you go announcing that theory! If there's anything in it--mum's the word! But mind you, Bisset, it's only a bare possibility. There's no good evidence against the door theory yet."

"Not the table being cowpit and the body moved?"

"They might be explained."

He was thoughtful for a moment and then said deliberately:

"I want--I mean you want certain evidence to exclude the door theory. Without that, the window theory remains a guess. Sir Malcolm is in London, I understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Likely to be coming north soon?"

"No word of it, sir."

Mr. Carrington reflected for a moment and then rose and went towards the window.

"We can draw back the curtains now," said he.

He drew them as he spoke and on the instant stepped involuntarily back and down went the small table. Miss Cicely Farmond was standing just outside, evidently arrested by the drawn curtains. Her eyes opened very wide indeed at the sight of Mr. Carrington suddenly revealed. Her lips parted for an instant as though she would cry out, and then she hurried away.

Mr. Carrington seemed more upset by this incident than one would expect from such a composed, easy-going young man.

"What will they think of me!" he exclaimed. "You must be sure to tell Miss Farmond--and Lady Cromarty too if she hears of this--that I came solely to enquire about the shootings and not to poke my nose into their library! Make that very explicit, Bisset."

Even though assured by Bisset that the young lady was the most amiable person imaginable, he was continuing to lay stress on the point when his attention was abruptly diverted by the sight of another lady in deep black walking slowly away from the house.

"Is that Lady Cromarty?" he asked, and no sooner had Bisset said "yes" than the window was up and Mr. Carrington stepping out of it.

"I really must explain and apologise to her ladyship," said he.

"Her ladyship will never know----!" began Bisset, but the surprising visitor was already hastening after the mourning figure. Had the worthy man been able to hear the conversation which ensued he would have been more surprised still.

"Lady Cromarty, I believe?" said the stranger in a deferential voice.