The Postmaster's Daughter Part 2

"It will help me a lot, sir," he said, "if you tell me now what you know about this matter. If, as seems more than likely, murder has been done, I don't want to lose a minute in starting my inquiries. In a case of this sort I find it best to take a line, and stick to it."

His tone was respectful but firm. Evidently, P.C. Robinson was not one to be trifled with. Moreover, for a sleuth whose maximum achievement hitherto had been the successful prosecution of a poultry thief, it was significant that the unconscious irony of "a case of this sort" should have been lost on him.

"Do you really insist on conducting your investigation while the body is lying here?" demanded Grant, deliberately turning his back on the girl in the distant cottage.

"Not that, sir--not altogether--but I must really ask you to clear up one or two points now."

"For goodness' sake, what are they?"

"Well, sir, in the first place, how did you come to find the body?"

"I walked out into the garden after finis.h.i.+ng breakfast a few minutes ago, and noticed the rope attached to the staple, just as you see it now."

"Did you walk straight here?"

"No. Not exactly. I was--er--curious about the face I saw, or thought I saw, last night, and looked into the room through the same window. By doing so I scared Mrs. Bates, who was clearing the table, and she screamed--"

"Her would, too," put in Bates. "Her'd take 'ee for Owd Ben's ghost."

"You shut up, Bates," said the policeman. "Don't interrupt Mr. Grant."

Grant was conscious of an undercurrent of suspicion in the constable's manner. He was wroth with the man, but recognized that he had to deal with narrow-minded self-importance, so contrived again to curb his temper.

"I am not acquainted with old Ben or his ghost," he said quietly. "I can only tell you that I went inside to rea.s.sure Mrs. Bates, and then strolled slowly to this very spot. Naturally, I could not miss the rope and the staple. To my mind, it was not intended that I or anyone else should miss them. I regarded them as so peculiar that I shouted for Bates. He came at once, and drew the body out of the water."

"And you recognized the dead woman as the one you saw last night?"

"Yes."

"At about ten minutes to eleven?"

"Yes."

"Is it likely, sir, that any other person saw her in these grounds a bit earlier?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, sir, I can't put it much plainer. Could anybody else have seen her here, say about 10.15?"

Grant met the policeman's inquiring glance squarely before he answered.

"It is possible, of course," he said, "but most unlikely."

"Were you alone here at that hour?"

Again Grant sought and held that inquisitive gaze, held it until Robinson affected to consult his notes. There was a moment of tense silence. Then the reply came with an icy stubbornness that was not to be denied.

"I decline absolutely to be cross-examined about my movements. If you are unable or unwilling to order the removal of the body, I'll telegraph to the chief of police at Knolesworth, and ask him to act. Further, I shall request Dr. Foxton to examine the poor lady's injuries. It strikes me as a monstrous proceeding that you should attempt to record my evidence at this moment, and I refuse to become a party to it."

"Now, then, Robinson, stop yer Sherlock Holmes work, an' help me to lift this poor woman on to the stretcher," said Bates gruffly.

The policeman's red face grew a shade deeper with annoyance, but he had the sense to avoid a scene. He was not popular in the village, and was well aware that the two rustics pressed into service as stretcher-bearers would joyfully retail the fact that he had been "set down a peg or two by Mr. Grant."

"I'll do all that's necessary in that way, sir," he said stiffly. "I suppose you have no objection to my askin' if you noticed any strange footprints on the ground hereabouts?"

"That was the first thing I looked for, both here and outside the window--the latter, of course, for another reason. I found none. These stones would show no signs. The ground is so dry that even the five men now present leave no traces, but I remember seeing in the bed of the stream certain marks which, unfortunately, were obliterated when Bates hauled the body ash.o.r.e. They were valueless, however--shapeless indentations in the mud and sand."

"Were they wide apart or close together, sir?"

"Quite irregular. No one could judge by the length of the stride whether they were made by the feet of a man or a woman, if that is what you have in mind ... but, really--"

Grant's impatient motion was not to be misunderstood. Robinson stooped, removed the rug, and unfastened the rope, after noting carefully how it was tied, a point which he called on the others to observe as well. Then he and the villagers went away with their sad burden, the rug being requisitioned once more to hide that wan face from the vivid suns.h.i.+ne.

Bates had a trick of grasping a handful of his short whiskers when puzzled; he did so now; it seemed to be an unconscious effort to pull his jaws apart in order to emit speech.

"I've a sort of idee, sir," he said slowly, "that Robinson saw Doris Martin on the lawn with 'ee last night."

Grant turned on his henchman in a sudden heat of anger.

"Miss Martin's name must be kept out of this matter," he growled.

But Suss.e.x is not easily browbeaten when it thinks itself in the right.

"All very well a-sayin' that, sir, but a-doin' of it is a bird of another color," argued Bates firmly.

"How did you know that Miss Martin was here?"

"Bless your heart, sir, how comes it that us Steynholme folk know everythink about other folk's business? Sometimes we know more'n they knows themselves. You've not walked a yard wi' Doris that the women's t.i.ttle-tattle hasn't made it into a mile."

No man, even the wisest, likes to be told an unpalatable truth. For a few seconds, Grant was seriously annoyed with this village Solon, and nearly blurted out an angry command that he should hold his tongue. Luckily, since Bates was only trying to be helpful, he was content to say sarcastically:

"Of course, if you are so well posted in my movements last night, you can a.s.sure the coroner and the Police that I did not strangle some strange woman, tie a rope around her, and throw her in the river."

"Me an' my missis couldn't help seein' you an' Doris a-lookin' at the stars through a spygla.s.s when us were goin' to bed," persisted Bates. "We heerd your voices quite plain. Once 'ee fixed the gla.s.s low down, an'

said, 'That's serious. It's late to-night.' An' I tell 'ee straight, sir, I said to the missis:--'It will be serious, an' all, if Doris's father catches her gallivantin' in our garden wi' Mr. Grant nigh on ten o'clock.' Soon after that 'ee took Doris as far as the bridge. The window was open, an' I heerd your footsteps on the road. You kem' in, closed the window, an' drew a chair up to the table. After that, I fell asleep."

Perturbed and anxious though he was, Grant could hardly fail to see that Bates meant well by him. The mental effort needed for such a long speech said as much. The allusion to Sirius, amusing at any other time, was now most valuable, because an astronomical almanac would give the hour at which that brilliant star became visible. Other considerations yielded at once, however, to the fear lest Robinson and his note-book were already busy at the post office. Without another word, he hurried away by the side-path through the evergreens, leaving Bates staring after him, and, with more whisker-pulling, examining the rope and staple, which, by the policeman's order, were not to be disturbed.

Grant reached the highroad just as Robinson and the men with the stretcher were crossing a stone bridge spanning the river about a hundred yards below The Hollies. A slight, youthful, and eminently attractive female figure, walking swiftly in the opposite direction, came in sight at the same time, and Grant almost groaned aloud when the newcomer stood stock still and looked at the mournful procession. He, be it remembered, was somewhat of an idealist and a poet; it grieved his spirit that those two women, the quick and the dead, should meet on the bridge. He took it as a portent, almost a menace, he knew not of what. He might have foreseen that unhappy eventuality, and prevented it, but his brain refused to work clearly that morning. A terrible and bizarre crime had bemused his faculties. He seemed to be in a state of waking nightmare.

He was stung into impetuous action by seeing the policeman halt and exchange some words with the girl. He began to run, with the quite definite if equally mad intent of punching Robinson into reasonable behavior. He was saved from an act of unmitigated folly by the girl herself. She caught sight of him, apparently broke off her talk with the policeman abruptly, and, in her turn, took to her heels.

Thus, on that strip of sun-baked road, with its easy gradient to the crown of the bridge, there was the curious spectacle offered by two men jogging along with a corpse on a stretcher, a young man and a young woman running towards each other, and a discomfited representative of the law, looking now one way and now the other, and evidently undecided whether to go on or return. Ultimately, it would seem, Robinson went with the stretcher-bearers, because Grant and the girl saw no more of him for the time.

Grant had received several shocks since rising from the breakfast-table, but it was left for Doris Martin, the postmaster's daughter, to administer not the least surprising one.

Though almost breathless, and wide-eyed with horror, her opening words were very much to the point.