The Loudwater Mystery Part 15

"Oh, one has to look out for every possible factor in a problem like this, you know," he said carelessly.

The faint frown lingered on Mr. Manley's brow. Mr. Flexen supposed that it was the result of his refraining from gratifying his appet.i.te for the dramatic. They were silent a while.

"When are you going to take our finger-prints?" said Mr. Manley presently.

"Not till I've learned whether there are any on the handle of the knife,"

said Mr. Flexen. "Perkins has already sent it off to Scotland Yard."

"I never thought of that. It would be rather a waste of time to take them before knowing that," said Mr. Manley.

Holloway brought the coffee; Mr. Manley gave Mr. Flexen an excellent cigar, and they talked about the war. Mr. Flexen drank his coffee quickly, said that he must get back to his work, and added that he hoped that he would enjoy the company of Mr. Manley at dinner. Mr. Manley had been going to dine with Helena Truslove; but after Mr. Flexen's question whether Lord Loudwater had been entangled with any woman in the neighbourhood, he thought that he had better dine with him. He might learn something useful, if he could induce Mr. Flexen to expand under the relaxing influence of dinner. He resolved to use his authority to have the most engaging wine the cellar held. He was determined to make every endeavour to keep Helena's name out of the affair, and he thought that he would succeed.

Mr. Flexen left him. He finished his coffee, the second cup, slowly, wondering about Mr. Flexen's question about Lord Loudwater and a woman.

Then, since he had done all the work he could think of, in the way of making arrangements for the funeral, during the morning, he set out briskly to Helena's house, hoping that she would be able to throw some light on it.

He greeted her with his usual warmth, and then, when he came to look at her at his leisure, it was plain to him that the murder had been a much greater shock to her than he had expected. He was surprised at it, for she had a.s.sured him that she had never been really in love with Lord Loudwater, and he had believed her. But there was no doubt that she had been greatly upset by the news of his death. Her high colouring was dimmed; she wore a hara.s.sed air, and she was uncommonly nervous and ill at ease. He thought it strange that she should be so deeply affected by the death of a man she had such good reason to detest. But, of course, there was no telling how a woman would take anything; Lady Loudwater's distress had fallen as far short of what he had expected as Helena's had exceeded it.

To Mr. Manley's credit it must be admitted that in less than twenty minutes Helena Truslove was looking another creature; her face had recovered all its colour; the hara.s.sed air had vanished from it, and she was sitting on his knee in a condition of the most pleasant repose. It was his theory that a woman was never too ill, or too ill at ease, or too unhappy to be made love to. He had acted on it.

When he had thus restored her peace of mind, he told her that Mr. Flexen had asked him whether the late Lord Loudwater had been mixed up with any lady in the neighbourhood, and asked her if she could suggest any reason for his having asked the question. She appeared greatly startled to hear of it. But she could not suggest any reason for his having asked the question. He then asked her about the manner in which the allowance had been paid to her, and was pleased to learn that there was little likelihood of Mr. Flexen's learning that she had received such an allowance from Lord Loudwater, for it had been paid her through a young lawyer of the name of Shepherd, at Low Wycombe, the lawyer who had dealt with the matter of the transference of the house they were in to her, from the rents of some houses Lord Loudwater owned in that town, and that lawyer was somewhere in Mesopotamia, his practice in abeyance.

She was in entire accord with Mr. Manley about the advantage of her name not being connected in any way with the tragedy at the Castle. She pointed out that it was also an advantage that she had just, been paid her allowance for the present quarter, and there would not be another payment for three months. By that time it was probable that the murder would have pa.s.sed out of people's minds and Mr. Flexen be busy with other work. It seemed to Mr. Manley that Mr. Flexen would not easily learn about the allowance unless Mr. Carrington also knew it, which seemed unlikely, though it was always possible that there was some record of it among the Lord Loudwater's papers at the Castle. Soon after seven he left her to walk back to dine with Mr. Flexen.

Mr. Flexen had had a considerable surprise that afternoon. He had told Robert Black to find William Roper and bring him to him. He wished to hear the story he had told Lord Loudwater the evening before, for it might be of a triviality to make the hypothesis that Lord Loudwater had committed suicide yet less worthy of serious consideration. Black was a long while finding William Roper, for he was at work in the woods.

Indeed, he had not yet heard that Lord Loudwater had been murdered, for he had been up most of the night, risen late, got his own breakfast in his out-of-the-way cottage in the depths of the West wood, and gone out on his rounds. The constable found him at the cottage, in the act of preparing his dinner, or rather his tea and dinner, at a quarter to four.

William Roper was startled, indeed, to hear of the murder, and then bitterly annoyed. All the while on his rounds he had been congratulating himself on his coming promotion, and reckoning up the many advantages which would accrue from it, not the least of which was a wider prospect of finding a wife. The cup was dashed from his lips. He had acquired no merit in the eyes of the new Lord Loudwater, and he had most probably made the present Lady Loudwater his enemy, if the murdered man had divulged the source of his knowledge of her goings-on with Colonel Grey.

He ate his mixed meal very sulkily, listening to the constable's account of the circ.u.mstances of the crime. Slowly, however, his face grew brighter as he listened; the new information he had obtained for his murdered employer might very well have an important bearing on the crime itself. He might yet establish himself as the benefactor of the family.

On the way to the Castle he was so mysterious with Robert Black that the stout constable became a prey to mingled curiosity and doubt. He could not make up his mind whether William Roper really knew something of importance or was merely vapouring. William Roper neither gratified his curiosity, nor banished his doubt. He was alive to the advantage of reserving his information for the most important ear, so as to gain the greatest possible credit for it.

At the first sight of him Mr. Flexen felt that he had before him an important witness, for he took a violent dislike to him, and he had observed, in the course of his many years' experience in the detection of crime, that the most important witness in hounding down a criminal was very often of a repulsive type, the nark type. William Roper was of that type, but his story was indeed startling.

He first told how he had seen Colonel Grey kiss Lady Loudwater in the afternoon--Mr. Flexen noted that Lord Loudwater had accused her of kissing Grey--and of their spending most of the afternoon in the pavilion in the East wood. The time of his watching had already lengthened in William Roper's memory. There was nothing new in these facts, and Mr.

Flexen saw no reason to suppose that they had any bearing on the crime.

But William Roper went on to say that soon after ten in the evening he had been on his round in the East wood, when he saw Colonel Grey walking in the direction of the Castle. His curiosity had been aroused by what he had seen in the afternoon, and thinking it not unlikely that he was on his way to another meeting with the Lady Loudwater, and that it was the duty of a faithful retainer to make sure about it, with a view to informing his master should his surmise prove correct, he followed him.

The Colonel went straight through the wood into the Castle garden, walked round the Castle, keeping in its shadow as he went, till he stood under the window of Lady Loudwater's suite of rooms.

There he appeared to suffer a check. There was a light in the room on the ground floor under her boudoir. The Colonel had waited quite a while; then he had walked round the Castle and into it by the library window.

William, greatly surprised by the Colonel's audacity, had taken up his position in a clump of tall rhododendrons, opposite the library window, from which he could keep watch on it.

"What time would this be?" said Mr. Flexen.

"It couldn't have been more than twenty minutes past ten, sir," said William Roper.

"And what happened then?" said Mr. Flexen.

"Nothing 'appened for a good ten minutes. Then James Hutchings, the butler, come across the gardens from the south gate, as if 'e'd come from the village, and 'e went in through the libery winder--the same winder."

Mr. Flexen had thought it not unlikely that Hatchings had entered the Castle by that entrance. He was pleased to have his guess corroborated.

"That would be about half-past ten," he said. "Could you see into the library at all?"

"Only a very little way, sir."

"You couldn't see whether Colonel Grey and then James Hutchings went straight through it into the hall, or whether either of them went into the smoking-room?"

"No; I couldn't see so far in as that, though there was a light burning in the libery," said William Roper.

That was a new fact. Any one pa.s.sing through the library would be able to see the open knife lying in the big inkstand.

"Go on," said Mr. Flexen. "What happened next?"

"Nothing 'appened for a long while--twenty minutes, I should think--and then there come a woman round the right-'and corner of the Castle wall and along it and into the libery winder. At first I thought it was Mrs.

Carruthers, or one of the maids--she were too tall for her ladys.h.i.+p--but it warn't."

"Are you quite sure?" said Mr. Flexen.

"Quite, sir. I should have known 'er if she had been. Besides, she was all m.u.f.fled up like. You couldn't see 'er face."

"Did she hesitate before going through the library window?" said Mr. Flexen.

"Not as I noticed. She seemed to go straight in."

"As if she were used to going into the Castle that way?" said Mr. Flexen.

William Roper scratched his head. Then he said cautiously: "She seemed to know that way in all right, sir."

"And how was she dressed?" said Mr. Flexen.

"She wasn't in black. It wasn't as dull as black, but it was dullish. It might have been grey and again it might not. It might have been blue or brown. You see, there was a fair moon, sir, but it was be'ind the Castle, an' I never seed 'er in the full moonlight, as you may say, seeing as, coming and going, she come along the wall and went round the right 'and corner of it, in the shadder."

"And which of these three people came away first?" said Mr. Flexen.

"She did. She wasn't in the Castle more nor twenty minutes--if that."

"Did she seem to be in a hurry when she came out? Did she run, or walk quickly?"

"No. I can't say as she did. She went away just about as she came--in no purtic'ler 'urry," said William Roper.

Mr. Flexen paused, considering; then he said: "And who was the next to leave?"

"The Colonel, 'e come out next--in about ten minutes."

"Did he seem in a hurry?"