CHAPTER XIV

Mr. Bathurst Takes a Book From the Bookcase

The Colonel made this announcement with an air! “By Gad!” it seemed to say—“I’ll show these police fellers and detective Johnnies that they aren’t the only people that can use their eyes or their memories!” Then Mr. Bathurst jerked him back from his ecstatic contemplation to stern reality.

“Now Colonel,” he said, “think very carefully—when did you see this book lying on Mr. Stewart’s desk—when you entered the library after dinner—or when you left him at ten o’clock?”

The Colonel frowned. “Damn it all, sir,” he muttered, “you expect a man to remember a devil of a lot—had I known there was going to be a murder, I might have taken more particular notice,” he glared at his questioner with growing impatience.

Anthony smiled. “As a matter of fact, sir—I wouldn’t have troubled to ask that question of ninety-nine persons out of a hundred—because I know I should get no satisfaction. The ordinary person is very unobservant. But I have been so impressed with the various points that you have remembered.”

The Colonel grunted his satisfaction—he was a soldier and therefore not unmoved by flattery. “Thank you—thank you,” he muttered. “Now let me see if I _can_ help you in this particular instance.” He closed his eyes for a few seconds seeking either concentration or inspiration—perhaps both. “The book was lying open on poor Stewart’s desk when he took me into the library—I’m certain of that now I cast my mind back—and I’m almost equally certain that it was in exactly the same position when I said ‘Good-bye’—I can’t remember him closing it or putting it away—he was talking pretty seriously to me virtually the entire evening. Yes”—he reflected, giving himself a species of mental check—“I’m confident that’s right.” Anthony held out his hand.

“That’s excellent, Colonel.”

Colonel Leach-Fletcher took it in his. “Must you be going?”

“Afraid so, Colonel—we’ve a heap of things to see to, Mr. Daventry and I—and we haven’t too much time at our disposal—coming over to see you has helped us no end—no doubt I shall see you again before the affair is finally settled.”

“When is the inquest fixed for?” queried the Colonel.

“Haven’t been told yet,” answered Anthony, “but in all probability it will only be formal at the first inquiry. The Police will probably take evidence of identification and then ask the Coroner for an adjournment. I’ll make arrangements for you to know as soon as we get the news at Assynton Lodge—still you’ll be wanted yourself—I was forgetting that.”

“I suppose you’re right—it’s a bad business and a nuisance—still it can’t be helped now—what’s done can’t be undone. Good-bye, gentlemen.” The Colonel waved his hand in dismissal. For a few minutes Anthony remained silent, and Peter Daventry was beginning to know him sufficiently well to realize that it was a thoroughly sound investment to let him alone during those moments. After a time his mood passed and Daventry saw his face break into a smile.

“Cigarette, Daventry?” he exclaimed, “and I’ll join you in smoking the health of a very pretty little problem indeed. I am deeply in your debt, Daventry, for my introduction to it. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

Peter took the cigarette and they lit up. “Glad to hear you say that, Bathurst,” he rejoined, “but the question is will you be able to let daylight into it?”

Anthony rubbed his chin with his fingers. “As to that, Daventry,” he said, “I am extremely confident—although I always try to school myself to remember that ‘Pride goeth before a fall.’” He grinned.

“Look here, Bathurst,” remarked Daventry, “I know in cases of this kind the Doctor Watson of the business is always a thick-headed sort of arrangement, and I don’t suppose I’m any more brilliant than the majority.” He stopped for a second—shamefaced and apologetic.

But he found Anthony the reverse of inaccessible. “Unload, Daventry,” he said sympathetically, “what precisely is troubling you?”

“Well, it’s like this,” responded Peter, “everything points as far as I can see to this Assynton Lodge murder being an inside job—and yet everybody there seems unaffected—I’m afraid I’m not making myself too clear—everybody seems normal—nobody’s bolted with the screen, for instance!”

Anthony shook his head. “I know what you mean, but what you put forward is very easily explained, isn’t it? The screen may have been handed to a confederate, or again, it may be more profitable for the criminal to hold up his activities for a while.”

“H’m,” said Peter, as he thought over what his companion said. “I see your point—but I’m not altogether satisfied.”

“I don’t suppose you are for a moment,” was the rejoinder, “the case, as a whole, bristles with extremely puzzling details—and you don’t know them all, Daventry, take it from me.”

Peter looked at him incredulously. “Why—what do you mean?”

“I got one or two pieces of evidence from Sergeant Clegg that he collected before we arrived at the scene—I haven’t told you of all of them yet.”

“Tell me now,” said Peter anxiously, “don’t leave me in the dark.”

“Let’s take the case as a whole then, without stopping to attempt to think of what you know and what you don’t know. Stewart is murdered, I’m confident I’m right here, about eleven p. m. Colonel Leach-Fletcher left at ten o’clock, Butterworth can give unimpeachable confirmation of _that_. The Colonel tells us that Stewart intended interviewing his son about some matter that was causing friction between them. We’ll call it friction—although it may have been of more serious consequence. It is a significant fact that Charles Stewart, although calling you and me into the case, has maintained an eloquent silence concerning it, whatever it was. Now we arrive at a further complication. Butterworth tells Sergeant Clegg that he heard Stewart—_Laurence_ Stewart—in conversation with somebody else in the library at _ten minutes past ten_!” He paused and watched Peter intently.

“You don’t say so,” exclaimed the latter. “Can he tell who it was?”

“Oh yes,” murmured Anthony negligently, “he recognized the person’s voice.”

“Then who was it?” demanded Peter eagerly.

“Marjorie Lennox!” Anthony dropped the name daintily and delicately—he must have been thinking of the little lady herself.

“It’s a lie,” cried Peter. “The butler’s lying—I refuse to believe it—it’s not feasible—it’s——”

“My dear Peter,” cooed Anthony, “I am sorely afraid that I diagnosed your complaint a few hours ago—when Miss Lennox made her dramatic entrance into the Museum Room. I feel doubly sure now that I was right.”

Peter looked somewhat sheepish.

“Unfortunately the excellent Butterworth’s story has strong support.”

“From whom?” asked Peter sullenly.

“Support of a peculiar and convincing nature,” continued Mr. Bathurst nonchalantly. “When the Sergeant first examined the library—_the actual scene of the crime_, Daventry—he found a lady’s handkerchief caught in the curtains that hang at the French doors.” He took another cigarette with evident enjoyment.

“Doesn’t necessarily belong to Miss Lennox,” countered Peter.

“N—no,” replied Anthony, calculatingly, “no, I admit that. But it has initials on it, in the corner, I believe—and those initials are ‘M. L.’—perhaps it belongs to Mr. Morgan Llewellyn!”

Peter gasped.

“Is that a fact, Bathurst?”

“Absolutely, my boy—everything exactly as I’ve told you!”

“Well, all I can say,” replied Peter, exercising his full powers of recovery, “I don’t believe Miss Lennox has _anything_ to do with the dreadful business and that she can give a perfectly reasonable account of how her handkerchief got there.” He seemed very dogged as he made this last remark. But Anthony had not finished with him yet awhile.

“But she _won’t_,” he proceeded airily. “She was approached about having been in the library. And she _lied_ about it, Daventry. It’s no use disguising the fact, she _lied_ about it—_and then made an attempt to get into the library_—presumably to look for her handkerchief.”

“Do they suspect her—do _you_ suspect her, Bathurst?” demanded Peter, “it seems impossible——that girl—mixed up in a monstrous affair of this sort”—he stopped at a loss for words to express his indignation adequately.

“I can’t answer your first question—I can’t answer for them,” said Anthony, “but I certainly suspect her of knowing more than she has told us. For instance—why has she deliberately accused Morgan Llewellyn?”

“What?” muttered Peter again. “When?”

“To Sergeant Clegg when he first spoke to her—what do you make of that, Daventry?” Peter was non-committal. “Again,” continued Bathurst relentlessly, “why were her initials in front of the dead man—scrawled by the dead man in his last conscious moments?”

“They mightn’t have been intended for hers—you can’t be certain,” defended Peter.

“Of course not!” Anthony slapped him on the back. “_As a matter of fact they weren’t!_”

Peter could hardly believe his ears at this sudden revelation. “How can you know that?” he demanded.

“Well, I don’t know, Daventry,” came the prompt reply, “but all the same, I’m pretty sure.”

They were nearing their destination, and the edges of the grounds of Assynton Lodge were already coming into sight. Anthony became grave again.

“But there’s one thing I don’t know,” he muttered. “What is the secret of these Stuart screens? What do they hold to make men murder for their possession? Why does one bear the first two words of a line from Virgil? ‘I fear the Greeks’—why the Greeks?—there were no Greeks round Mary surely”—he turned to his companion. “Tell me again—what was the inscription on the tapestry screen at the Hanover Galleries?”

“It was done in colored beads—the beads spelled the words, ‘Jesus Christ, God and Saviour.’”

“Made by a monk, I suppose,” murmured Anthony, “their work was usually dedicated in that way—still——”

Peter cut in. “I know! There’s one thing I wanted to ask you—it slipped my mind just now. What made you suspect Colonel Leach-Fletcher?”

Anthony showed signs of amusement. “Who says I suspect him?”

“I could see you did,” replied Peter, “dash it all, I’m not so blind as all that.”

“You’re forgetting something, Daventry,” said Anthony. “Leach-Fletcher’s stay was from seven to ten, you know—three hours he spent with the murdered man!”

Peter looked blank. “Don’t get you,” he exclaimed. “If you want to suspect anybody—suspect that lying Butterworth. He must have some ulterior motive for hatching up that yarn about Miss Lennox.”

Anthony shook his head in denial. “Butterworth told the truth, Daventry. What he said about Miss Lennox is entirely accurate.”

They entered the gate and walked round to the back of the house, Peter growing moodier and more despondent. His championship of Miss Lennox, together with his denunciation of the butler, had proved profitless—his words had fallen on barren soil. Whereat he was distinctly crestfallen! He refused to harbor the idea for a mere moment that Miss Lennox could be implicated in the crime that he was helping to investigate. It was ridiculous! When he considered that only a couple of days ago he was craving for something exciting to turn up and now that “something exciting” _had_ turned up—he found the whole thing extremely difficult to believe.

“When do you expect Goodall back?” he questioned as they entered the house.

“Can’t say definitely,” said Anthony, “it depends on how he gets on up in Clifford Street. London’s a big place—he may have a ticklish job to trace ‘Mr. and Mrs. Laurence Charles Stewart.’ You can’t tell.”

Peter assented. “That’s just what I’m thinking,” he declared, “rather neat that, don’t you think, to register in those names?”

Anthony turned to him—a serious look on his face. “You feel certain then—that they are assumed names, Daventry, and not their own?”

“Well,” replied Peter, with a certain amount of hesitation, “I’m afraid I took that for granted—I hadn’t been considering them as possible members of Stewart’s family—do you really think they are?”

“I don’t know quite what to think about it—I’ve nothing sound to work upon—I reserve my opinion till I know more—it’s a habit of mine.”

Charles Stewart came forward to greet them. “So Goodall’s gone to town—eh? What about some lunch—you must be ready for some by now?”

“Yes, to both questions,” laughed Anthony. “The Inspector thinks he can do better up in town for the time being than down here.”

Stewart seemed disinclined for conversation at lunch, and with Llewellyn relapsing into taciturnity, Anthony was left to contemplate the _entente cordiale_ that had so speedily arisen between Peter Daventry and Marjorie Lennox. It possessed several features of attraction for him. At the same time he realized that it might conceivably place Daventry in an awkward position as Charles Stewart’s solicitor and indirectly affect himself. When they rose from the table he slipped his arm into Peter’s.

“I want you for a moment, Daventry—I want to get into the library while the coast is reasonably clear, and I want you to help me.”

Peter was pleased to hear this—action stimulated him just as much as passivity galled him. He cast one more adoring glance in the direction of the exquisite Marjorie and fell in at Anthony’s side.

“It’s just possible that I’m too late,” remarked the latter, “that the bird has flown—or rather ‘has been flown with’—still, we’ll see.”

Peter nodded in agreement, although of course he didn’t see.

“Come in and close the door quietly,” said Anthony, “and now you’re in, sit down and make yourself comfortable—you’re going to stay in here some little time.” Peter found himself wondering what was coming. “I’m going to speak very quietly, Daventry, because something sinister is going on in this house—and as events have already shown—the persons concerned stick at nothing. I am particularly anxious not to be overheard or even overlooked. So we’ll pretend, as far as we are able, to be indulging in just an ordinary conversation. Remember how careful I was first thing after breakfast this morning.”

“Bank on me,” came Peter’s reply. This sort of thing rather appealed to him, it served to put him on his mettle.

“You will remember also,” commenced Anthony, “that my rest was disturbed last night, or to be precise, this morning, by a gentleman who was indulging in a little walking exercise past my bedroom door and down the corridor to his own! You and I know that gentleman, my dear Daventry, as a Mr. Morgan Llewellyn. I formed the opinion that it must be a fairly strong motive that lures a man from his bed to promenade the house at night—what do you think, Daventry?”

“Absolutely,” said Peter decisively, “I know it would have to be for me.”

“We’ll proceed then”—Anthony lit a cigarette and tossed his case to Peter. “From other symptoms that very quickly manifested themselves, I concluded that the gentleman in question was seeking something that he had dropped—or left by mistake, possibly—in this room—he was annoyed, you will remember, that he found his entrance barred by Clegg’s arrangements. And he was so annoyed that he was indiscreet enough to _express_ his annoyance. Of course I ought to mention that there’s just one other possibility”—here Anthony glanced slyly at the attentive Daventry—“Mr. Llewellyn _may_ have been worried about something that somebody else had left in here.” He blew a cloud of smoke from his nostrils. “A lady’s handkerchief, for example. What do you say to that—impossible?”

“I suppose it’s possible,” conceded Peter grudgingly, “I’ll grant you that much.”

“That’s very sporting of you,” declared Anthony. “But somehow I don’t think that’s the true explanation—Miss Lennox, Clegg tells me, was working on her own to recover the lost handkerchief—so I don’t think she employed Mr. Llewellyn. Now—listen. I watched our gentleman very carefully when we were all in here this morning—when Stewart sent for him and also afterwards—and I’m pretty confident that he’s uneasy about something in this library. From the way in which he used his eyes on this desk—I deduce a document or paper of some kind. I may be wrong, of course. This is where I come to the remark I made when we came in just now. During our absence at Colonel Leach-Fletcher’s—Goodall came as well, remember—he may have made hay while the sun shone. But I think not, my dear Daventry, I think not.” He crossed to Stewart’s bookcase. “You may have noticed more than once in your experience that a man will very often put an important paper handed to him unexpectedly into a receptacle that he has handy at the moment. As I see the facts of the case after Colonel Leach-Fletcher said his ‘good-bye’ to Laurence Stewart, Stewart returned to the book that he had been reading. The Colonel was good enough to remember its title. It was Renan’s ‘_Vie de Jésus_.’” Anthony stopped and pondered for a minute or two. Peter wondered what was troubling him. Whatever it was, it soon passed. He lifted up the glass front of the bookcase and sought the book he had just mentioned. “A singularly beautiful piece of work, this, Daventry,” he declared. “But I expect you’ve read it.” He brought it over to Peter—then held it by the two sides of the cover and fluttered its leaves together quickly. A paper fell on the carpet. Peter’s hand, disengaged and therefore at an advantage, beat Anthony’s in its descent, by the merest fraction. He ran his eye over it with eager excitement.

“It’s a letter,” he cried—“from Morgan Llewellyn.”

“Really,” said Anthony—“and to whom?”

Peter’s eyes searched for the information. “To Miss Lennox,” he gasped.

“_Voilà!_” murmured Mr. Bathurst.