The Hand in the Dark Part 26

"What is it? Do you wish to speak to me?" said Colwyn, with his pleasant smile.

A look of perplexity and doubt pa.s.sed over the butler's face as he paused irresolutely in the doorway.

"I merely wished to ask, sir, if there is anything else I can get for you before I go."

His face had resumed its wonted impa.s.sivity, and the words came promptly, but Colwyn knew it was not the answer he had intended to make.

"I want nothing further," he said.

The butler bowed, and hurried away. Colwyn stood for a few moments pondering over the incident. Then he went to bed and slept soundly.

He was awakened in the morning by the twittering of birds in the ivy outside his window. The mist from the moat crept up the gla.s.slike steam, but through it he caught glimpses of a dappled autumn sky, and in the distance a bright green hill, with a trail of white clouds floating over the feathery trees on the summit. As he watched the rapid play of light and shade on the hill, he wondered why the moat-house had been built on the damp unwholesome flat lands instead of on the breezy height.

When he descended later, he found Tufnell awaiting him in the hall to conduct him to the breakfast table. In the breakfast-room Sir Philip, Miss Heredith, and Vincent Musard were a.s.sembled. The baronet greeted Colwyn with his gentle unfailing courtesy, and Musard shook hands with him heartily. The fact that Phil had brought him to the moat-house was in itself sufficient to ensure a gracious reception from Miss Heredith, but as soon as she saw Colwyn she felt impelled to like him on his own account. It was not the repose and simplicity of his manners, or his freedom from the professional airs of ostentatious notoriety which attracted her, though these things had their weight with a woman like Miss Heredith, by conveying the comforting a.s.surance that her guest was at least a gentleman. There was more than that. She was immediately conscious of that charm of personality which drew the liking of most people who came in contact with Colwyn. In the strong clear-cut face of the great criminologist, there was the abiding quality of sympathy with the sufferings which spring from human pa.s.sions and the tragedy of life. But, if his serenity of expression suggested that he had not allowed his own disillusionment with life to embitter his outlook or narrow his vision, his glance also suggested a clear penetration of human motives which it would be unwise to try to blind. Miss Heredith instinctively realized that Colwyn was one of those rare human beings who are to be both feared and trusted.

"You will not see my nephew until later," she explained to him as they sat down to breakfast. "He is far from strong yet, and he has had so little sleep since his illness that I am always glad when he is able to rest quietly. I looked in his room a few minutes ago and he was sleeping soundly, so I darkened the room and left him to sleep on."

Colwyn expressed his sympathy. His quick intelligence, gauging his new surroundings and the members of the household, had instantly divined the sterling qualities, the oddities, and cla.s.s prejudices which made up the strong individuality of the mistress of the moat-house. He saw, for all her dignified front, that she was suffering from a shock which had shaken her to her inmost being, and he respected her for bearing herself so bravely under it.

The breakfast progressed in the leisurely way of the English morning meal. The tragedy which had darkened the peaceful life of the household nearly a fortnight before was not mentioned. Colwyn appreciated the tact of his hostess in keeping the conversation to conventional channels, leaving it for him to introduce the object of his visit in his own time. Only at the conclusion of the meal, as Miss Heredith was leaving the apartment, did she tell him that she hoped he would let her know if there was anything he required or wished her to do. He thanked her, and said there was nothing just then. Later, it would be necessary for him to go over the house, under her guidance, if she could spare the time. She replied that she could do so after lunch if that would be suitable, and went away. Sir Philip followed her, and Colwyn and Musard were left alone.

"Shall we have a cigar in the garden?" said Musard. He wished to know more of the man of whom he had heard so much by repute, and he believed that tobacco promoted sociability. He also desired to find out whether Colwyn's presence at the moat-house meant that Phil had succeeded in impressing him with his own belief in the innocence of Hazel Rath.

Colwyn willingly agreed. He realized the difficulties of the task ahead of him, and he welcomed the opportunity of hearing all he could about the murder from somebody who knew all the circ.u.mstances. Phil's personal knowledge of the facts did not extend beyond the point where he had fallen unconscious in the bedroom, and a talk with Musard offered the best available subst.i.tute for his own lack of first-hand impressions.

The garden basked in the warmth of a mellow autumn suns.h.i.+ne which had dispersed the morning mist. In the air was the scent of late flowers and the murmurs of bees; the bright eyes of blackbirds and robins peeped out from the ornamental yews, and the peac.o.c.ks trailed their plumes over the sparkling emerald lawns. But Colwyn and Musard had no thought of the beauty of the morning or the charm of the old-world garden as they paced across the lawn. It was Musard who broached the subject which was engrossing their minds.

"It was very good of you to come down here, Mr. Colwyn. Your visit is a great relief to Miss Heredith."

"Does Miss Heredith share her nephew's belief in Miss Rath's innocence?"

"I would not go so far as to say that, though I think his own earnestness has impressed her with the hope that some mistake has been made. But her chief concern is her nephew's health, and she is anxious, above all things, to remove his mental worry and unrest. The mere fact that you have undertaken to make further inquiries into the case will do much to ease his mind."

"I will do what I can. My princ.i.p.al difficulty is to pick up the threads of the case. It is some time since the murder was committed, and the attendant circ.u.mstances which might have helped me in the beginning no longer exist. It is like groping for the entrance to a maze which has been covered over by the growths of time."

"Do you yourself believe it possible that Hazel Rath is innocent?"

"I have come here to investigate the case. The police account for the girl's possession of Captain Nepcote's revolver, with which Mrs. Heredith was shot, by the theory that she obtained it from the gun-room of the moat-house shortly before the murder. There is work for me to do both here and in London, in clearing up this point. It is so important that I cannot understand the att.i.tude of Detective Caldew in dismissing it as a matter of no consequence. If Hazel Rath were convicted with that question unsettled, she would be condemned on insufficient evidence. It is for this reason I have taken her interests into my hands. But, apart from this point, I am bound to say that the case against her strikes me as a very strong one."

"Yet it is quite certain that Phil Heredith believes her innocent," remarked Musard thoughtfully.

"Belief is an intangible thing. In any case, his belief is not shared by you."

"How do you know that?"

"You would have said so."

"Well, I will go so far as to say that Hazel Rath is a most unlikely person to commit murder."

"Murder is an unlikely crime. There is no brand of Cain to reveal the modern murderer. Finger-prints are a surer means of identification. This unhappy girl may be the victim of one of those combinations of sinister events which sometimes occur in crime, but I do not intend to form an opinion about that until I know more about the case. For that reason I shall be glad if you will give me your account of everything that happened on the night of the murder. Philip Heredith's story is incomplete, and I wish to hear all the facts."

Musard nodded, and related the particulars with an attention to detail which left little to be desired. His version filled in the gaps of Phil's imperfect narrative, and enabled the detective to visualize the murder with greater mental distinctness. The two stories agreed in their essential particulars, but they varied in some degree in detail. Colwyn, however, was well aware that different witnesses never exactly agree in their impressions of the same event. Phil had made only an incidental reference to the dinner-table conversation about jewels, and Colwyn was not previously aware that the story of the ruby ring had occupied twenty minutes in the telling.

"How did you come to tell the story?" he asked.

"Some of the ladies were admiring my ring, and Phil suggested that they should hear the story of its discovery. I had just finished when the scream rang out from upstairs, followed by the shot."

"How long was the interval between the scream and the shot?"

"Only a few seconds," replied Musard. "Some of us started to go upstairs as soon as we heard it, but the shot followed before we reached the door of the dining-room."

Colwyn reflected that this estimate differed from Phil Heredith's, who had thought that nearly half a minute elapsed between the scream and the shot. But he knew that a correct estimate of the lapse of time is even rarer than an accurate computation of distance.

Musard knew nothing about two aspects of the case on which Colwyn desired to gain light. He had seen nothing of the target shooting in the gun-room the day before the murder, but he thought it quite possible that Captain Nepcote's revolver might have lain there unnoticed until the following night, because the men of the house party were a poor shooting lot who were not likely to use the gun-room much. He had heard the head gamekeeper say that there had been no shooting parties, and Tufnell had told him that only one or two of the men had brought guns with them. Neither was Musard aware whether there existed the motive of wronged virtue or slighted affection to arouse a girl like Hazel Rath to commit such a terrible crime. He had always thought her a sweet and modest girl, but he had seen too much of the world to place much reliance on externals, and he had had very few opportunities of observing whether there had been anything in the nature of a love affair between her and Philip. His own view was that whatever feeling existed was on the girl's side only.

"If there had been love pa.s.sages between them, Phil's conscience would not have allowed him to be quite so certain of her innocence," added Musard. "I told him of her arrest, and there can be no doubt that he thinks the police have made a hideous mistake in arresting her. Detective Caldew refused to admit the possibility of mistake, but Phil shuts his eyes to everything that tells against the girl, including her mother's unpleasant past."

"Did Miss Heredith know anything of her housekeeper's past?"

"No. Mrs. Rath, as she calls herself, came to Heredith many years ago, took a small cottage, and tried to support her daughter and herself by giving lessons in music and French. She would have starved if it had not been for Miss Heredith, who helped her and her little girl, tried to get the mother some pupils, and finally took her into the moat-house as housekeeper. Mrs. Rath disappeared from the place after her daughter's arrest, when the police had decided that it was not necessary to detain her, leaving a note behind her for Miss Heredith to say that she couldn't face her after all that had happened."

Colwyn did not speak immediately. He was examining the row of upper windows which looked down on the garden in which they were standing.

"Is that the window of the room in which Mrs. Heredith was murdered?" he asked, pointing to the first one.

"Yes. It is high for a first-floor window, but there is a fall in the ground on this side of the house."

Colwyn tested the strength of the Virginia creeper which grew up the wall almost to the window, and then bent down to examine the gra.s.s and earth underneath.

"Caldew thought at first that the murderer escaped from the window, but Merrington did not agree with him," said Musard.

If the remark was intended to extract an expression of opinion from Colwyn it failed in effect, for he remained silent. He had regained his feet, and was looking up at the window again.

"Where is the door which opens on the back staircase of this wing?" he said, at length.

"At the extreme end. You cannot see it from here. It opens on the back of the house."

"According to the newspaper reports of the case, the door is always kept locked. Is that correct?"

"As a general rule it is. But it was found unlocked before dinner on the night the murder was committed."

"I was not informed of this before."

"Phil was not aware of it, and Detective Caldew attached so little importance to it when I told him after the murder that I should not have thought it worth mentioning if you had not asked me. Caldew's point of view was that the door had been left unlocked, accidentally, by one of the servants, which is quite possible. I understand both detectives agree that it had nothing to do with the murder, because the door was locked by the butler, who discovered it unlocked, fully an hour before the murder was committed. If Hazel Rath had attempted to escape that way she would have been caught in a cul-de-sac, for we rushed upstairs from the dining-room immediately we heard the scream."

"Did you search the back staircase?"

"Almost immediately. It was empty."