The Polo Ground Mystery Page 17

  “But you don’t suspect Captain Fanshaugh of having any hand in this job?” asked the inspector.

  “I suspect anyone and every one. Now you’ve thoroughly questioned the servants in the house, do you think they’re all right, Heather?”

  “Right as rain! Dunkerley, the butler; Frederick and George, the footmen; Parsons, Mr. Armadale’s valet; Ted, the pantry boy; the grooms, stablemen, cooks, maids—every one is above suspicion.”

  “Well, I’m leaving that end of the business to you. Mr. Armadale was rather a gay bird, and from his past history we know he was not above paying attentions to a pretty maid. You’ve made sure that history hasn’t repeated itself and roused jealousy?”

  “I’ve thrashed that out pretty thoroughly. There was nothing that gave me a single clue. We’re left with seven possibles among the men: Portwine, Peach, Ralli, Degerdon, Fanshaugh, Winter, and Raoul Vernet; among the women, Mrs. Armadale and Miss Cazas.”

  “You’ve forgotten some one, Heather, and that’s Miss Trixie Collyer, his illegitimate daughter.”

  “I took her into consideration very early in the day, but couldn’t spot a strong enough motive.”

  “You’re forgetting, Heather, that Armadale objected very strongly to Ralli’s entanglement with her. The young lady knew that Mr. Armadale stood in the way of a very desirable marriage for her. Now that he’s out of the way, her dream is going to come true.”

  “I figured that all out, but working on the principle that women very rarely use fire-arms, I’m rather inclined to suspect Mr. Ralli than her.”

  “It’s a shaky principle, Heather. You remember Mrs. Caillaux, who shot the editor of the Figaro; and recently in France and on the Riviera similar shootings have taken place. Miss Collyer, brought up as a game-keeper’s daughter, would almost instinctively turn to fire-arms as a means of accomplishing her ends.”

  “You’re casting too wide a net, Mr. Vereker. In your inquiry you must try and keep in view that the murder is connected with the burglary until you’ve definitely proved it isn’t.”

  “I’ve worked up a nice little solution of the burglary, Heather, but I must make one or two more moves before I can confidently disclose it to you. It may be connected with Mr. Armadale’s murder. If it is, you’ll have to do your damnedest to lay M. Raoul Vernet by the heels as quickly as possible. By the way, a second car, a Trojan, stopped on the Nuthill road on Thursday morning. Any news of it?”

  “Oh, yes; a stolen Trojan car was found abandoned by the side of the road near Whyteleafe. Our lines seem to be converging, Mr. Vereker,” said the inspector, rubbing his hands briskly together, “and I think the fact entitles us both to one more toothful of your excellent Scotch before lunch.”

  After this meal, Inspector Heather set off for Nuthill Police Station, and Vereker, feeling rather at a “loose end,” thrust his sketch-book into his pocket and made his way to his sketching ground in a clearing of Wild Duck Wood. The spot, apart from its pictorial value, drew him on account of the mysterious incident that had occurred there on his last visit. Clear-cut in his visual memory was a brown Harris Norfolk jacket and the set of a young man’s head and shoulders. On encountering Ralph Degerdon, some hours later at Vesey Manor, that vignette had been recalled with startling vividness. Degerdon was then wearing light grey tweeds and a soft felt hat, but the carriage of head and torso were similar, if not the same. Subsequent conversation had gone far to invalidate Vereker’s surmise that it was Degerdon he had seen, but an uneasy doubt haunted his mind. He had brought with him the shooting-stick which Ralli had given him, and found it a fair substitute for a sketching-stool. As he was making his rapid charcoal studies on tinted Michallet, he was struck a sharp stinging blow on the ear by a missile which, on investigation, proved to be an acorn. As there was a complete absence of wind, he was at first rather surprised, but absorption in his work soon erased the incident from his mind. A second acorn, which hit his sketch-book squarely in the centre and bounded into the air in front of him, caused him to rise and glance swiftly round. There was no one in sight; but, guessing that the marksman must be some practical joker in concealment, he thrust his sketch-book into his pocket and was about to beat the surrounding covert. At that moment, from a clump of guelder, there appeared the grinning face of Captain “Fruity” Fanshaugh.

  “Not a bad shot, Fanshaugh,” said Vereker, laughing.

  “You were a sitter, Vereker,” replied Fanshaugh, and emerged into the open.

  “I didn’t expect to meet you here,” remarked Vereker.

  “I lunched with a friend over at the Guards’ Depot at Caterham, and, as I felt like exercise, I thought I’d make a cross-country journey back to Nuthill. There’s nothing like trudging to give a man an accurate knowledge of his country. The best man to hounds I ever knew regularly spent some days foot-following during the cub-hunting season. I see you’re sketching. Ralli told me you were a painter, not a ‘real one as climbs up a ladder,’ but a High Art walla. Have you seen him lately?”

  “I saw him this morning. He asked me to run over to the manor and meet Mrs. Armadale and your friend, Houseley.”

  “Ah, it does a man good to see Angela. There’s my ideal of a woman, plenty of bone and full of quality. How’s she standing the strain of this affair?”

  “Admirably, I should say.”

  “Glad to hear it. And her cavaliere servente, Houseley? More attentive than ever now there’s hope, I’ll bet. By the way, I hear you’re very friendly with the Yard inspector whose down here on this Armadale job. Has he got any nearer to a solution of the puzzle?”

  “He doesn’t say very much, but I gathered from his cheerful manner this morning that he’s hot on the trail.”

  “Has he found the pistol yet?” asked Fanshaugh casually.

  “I’m almost certain he has; he’s so chirpy. They’ve been scouring these woods and fields very thoroughly,” said Vereker, with an observant eye for the effect of his words.

  “Very disturbing for game,” remarked Fanshaugh, with a note of uneasiness which did not escape the alert Vereker.

  “I suppose so,” he agreed, and added, “From what I gathered in our chat this morning, one of the principal clues in the case has something to do with the side door to the manor—the one near the gun-room.”

  “By Jove!” exclaimed Fanshaugh, with ill-concealed surprise. “But what’s the clue?”

  “I couldn’t say exactly, but there’s some question about the bolts,” replied Vereker cautiously. “Have you ever used that door or noticed anything peculiar about it, Fanshaugh?”

  “Never been through it in my life. Sutton had a weakness for that door. He used to call it his own particular postern, and always carried the key to it on his person.”

  “Do you know if there were other keys to it?”

  “I’ve never heard of one, but there are sure to be others. Angela would be certain to have a duplicate.”

  Producing the bunch from his pocket, Vereker picked out the key which Ralli had given him that morning and said:

  “I wonder if this key’s one of them.”

  “That’s one,” said Fanshaugh eagerly. “Where the devil did you find it?”

  “I didn’t exactly find it,” replied Vereker, with a mingled sensation of surprise and satisfaction. “Has one been lost?”

  “How the devil should I know?” exclaimed Fanshaugh clumsily.

  “Of course not,” agreed Vereker amiably, “but you feel certain that it is a key to the side door near the gun-room?”

  “I’m almost certain,” assured Fanshaugh, with painful hesitation, as he looked shrewdly at Vereker. Had he been sufficiently observant and had he known his companion better, he would have noticed a slight tension of the masseter muscles—the only indication in Vereker’s face of the sudden thrill of excitement which he was rigidly suppressing.

  “I must hand it to Ralli when I see him again,” said Vereker, with well-feigned calm, as he returned the bunch to his pocket.

&
nbsp; “It may have an important bearing on the case. How did you get hold of it?” asked Fanshaugh, with continued interest.

  “It was lying on an occasional table in the room which Ralli has put at my disposal at the manor while I’m knocking about this neighbourhood,” replied Vereker unabashedly.

  “I’m calling at the manor on my way back. Shall I hand it over for you?” came the polite inquiry.

  “If you’d be so good,” said Vereker, detaching the key from his bunch.

  For a few seconds he stood hesitant, and then handed the key to Fanshaugh who, remarking that he must be back in Nuthill for tea, took his departure and was soon lost to sight.

  “Not very complimentary to my intelligence,” muttered Vereker reflectively, and dismissing the subject from his mind glanced curiously round.

  “There’s something mysterious about this spot!” he exclaimed. “It’s a spot that wishes to be visited, but I’m afraid there’s no Celtic rock-a-by-baby spoof about its uncanny attraction. First an unknown with a close resemblance—a shaving-mirror resemblance—to Degerdon; then came Ralli, and now Fanshaugh!” He glanced round and noticed the trampled state of the bracken on all sides. Heather’s minions had evidently done their work thoroughly on the off-chance of finding a weapon that had been flung away by the man who had shot Armadale. On thinking it over, Vereker was struck by the amount of labour expended on such an uncertain assumption. Still, experience had evidently proved to the police that in a case of murder the culprit’s first idea was to get rid of the deadliest link connecting him with the crime. If Sutton’s murderer had followed such a course, what more likely place than this covert with its dense undergrowth in which to bury the instrument for an indefinite length of time. Vereker’s interview with Captain Fanshaugh had completely driven all desire for sketching out of his mind. Leaving the wood, he made his way up to Collyer’s cottage with the intention of having a talk with the gamekeeper. Collyer was out, but Trixie Collyer came to the door, clad in a white overall and with palette and brushes in her hand. She asked Vereker into the little sitting-room of the cottage, which served as her studio and where she was busy at a flower study composed of pale yellow dahlias and Michaelmas daisies.

  “You mustn’t be too critical, Mr. Vereker,” she said, as he examined her work. “Mr. Ralli has been telling me about your fame as an artist, and it rather frightens me.”

  Vereker suggested a slight alteration in tone values and was diplomatically encouraging. During this conversation, he took the opportunity of having a good look at Basil Ralli’s fiancée and was struck by her extraordinary beauty. Her jet black hair, worn short and waved, reflected pale blue in the high lights from the general colouring of the room, and in contrast her skin shone almost luminously white. Scarlet lips, rather sensuous in their fullness, almost suggested artifice by their natural brilliance, and her eyes were the large liquid eyes so often seen in Turkish women. As Vereker talked, she stood gazing at her painting with a frown of dissatisfaction on her face.

  “It’s no good,” she exclaimed at last, as she flung down her brushes on her painting table. “I’m too upset to work.”

  “All our nerves are a bit on edge at present,” commented Vereker, “over this terrible business at the manor.”

  “I’m not worrying very much about that, Mr. Vereker,” she hastened to inform him. “Mr. Armadale was my father, and in a way I think he was genuinely fond of me, but I can’t say I returned his affection. Until recently I didn’t know he was my father, and, when I found out, the little affection I had for him vanished. Unknown to anyone, I went up to Hartlepool to see my mother. My curiosity was very natural, I think. I found her a very unhappy woman, a drudge degraded by her life with a drunken sailor who beat her regularly. Indirectly my father had brought her to this. She confided in me that she had been passionately in love with him and still loved him. Not once did she blame him for his seduction of her, for that’s what, in plain words, his conduct amounted to. He had pensioned her off with three pounds a week, and left me to be brought up by his gamekeeper’s wife. For myself, I didn’t care two raps, and I’m grateful to him for my education, but his wretched treatment of my mother I couldn’t forgive. So you see, Mr. Vereker, if I’m not greatly upset by my father’s death, some of my callousness may be forgiven.”

  “He was rather unhappy about your friendship with his nephew, I believe,” said Vereker, and was surprised at the effect produced by his words.

  At once the girl’s whole frame grew rigid, her fingers were clenched in anger, and her large eyes lit with dangerous fire.

  “Beast!” she exclaimed vehemently. “Not only had he made a mess of my mother’s life but he was determined to spoil mine. He told Basil when he discovered he was growing fond of me that I was his illegitimate brat by a little trollop who had been his first wife’s maid. He spoke of my mother as if she were a common street woman!”

  For some seconds the girl’s beauty was convulsed by the ugliness of an overwhelming anger, and then, conscious that she had let her feelings carry her away, she suddenly ceased talking and recovered her self-control with amazing swiftness.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Vereker,” she said calmly, “but my paddy gets the better of me when I sense an injustice. I must try and forget all about it now.”

  “The only thing to do,” remarked Vereker sympathetically.

  “There’s still a fly in the ointment,” continued Miss Collyer. “Now that everything looks more hopeful for me than ever it has done, I’m being pestered by another suitor whom I don’t care two straws for. His name is Frank Peach, and his mother is my mother’s sister. I’ve done my best to be friendly and decent towards him, but we’re worlds apart, and there’s something strange about him which gives me the creeps. I’m really horribly afraid of him. When I found that his feelings towards me were growing warmer than I cared for, I tried my hardest to choke him off. It only made matters worse. He simply wouldn’t be choked off. He grew jealous and sulked. As long as I remember, he has been subject to morose fits, during which he moons about alone and speaks to no one. There’s a trace of insanity in his family on his father’s side. However, since I told him that I was in love with Mr. Ralli, he has begun to threaten us both. This morning he met us on our walk before breakfast and created a terrible scene. It was all I could do to prevent the two men from coming to blows. So you see why I’m upset, Mr. Vereker.”

  “I can quite understand your feelings,” remarked Vereker.

  At that moment Collyer came into the cottage. He was looking worried, and on Vereker’s tactful reference to the fact, he smiled.

  “You see, Mr. Vereker, I don’t know from Adam what Mr. Ralli’s going to do about the shootin’ this year,” he said. “He don’t seem to be terrible keen on shootin’ at all; partridges is very poor, and all this trampin’ about coverts ain’t doing a heap of good. I wish they’d find that dratted pistol and go back to London first train. My pheasants ain’t had no peace of mind for the last week.”

  “I’m afraid I’m one of the offenders, Collyer.”

  “That you ain’t, sir. You don’t do no harm sitting quiet like and painting portraits of trees and such. Birds don’t mind that. It’s all this rampaging about and ’ollerin’ to one another. There’s too many people allowed about, and if I had my way I’d stop Captain Fanshaugh and Mr. Degerdon makin’ a right-of-way through Duck Wood on to the Godstone road. I’ve just seen the fust-named gent paradin’ about the estate as if the place was his. Mr. Armadale was easy-going, but Mr. Ralli’s going to be sloppy.”

  “I met Captain Fanshaugh on my way here through Wild Duck Wood. He said he was returning from Caterham and cutting across country to Nuthill.”

  “Then the gentleman ain’t particular about the truth,” said Collyer. “He hadn’t been to no Caterham. I saw him coming up from Godstone way through my glasses, and that’s just opposite direction.”

  “You don’t seem to like Captain Fanshaugh, Collyer,” said Vereker, with a lau
gh.

  “Well, sir, he’s meddlesome, that’s what he is. He got on the soft side of Mr. Armadale, and not content with running the stables he wanted to run my job as well. I told him straight, sir, that he’d better mind his own business, which was shootin’ when the season came round, and leave the keeperin’ to me. We had words over the partridges. He asked me one day, ‘Do you know the chipped-egg system, Collyer?’ and I says, ‘Yes, sir, and I could teach you how to suck ’em.’ He was mad with me for a bit, but I heard him tellin’ the guv’nor about it later as a joke. The guv’nor gave him too much rope, and as I reckoned left him a tidy bit in his will.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know that, Collyer,” said Vereker, with surprise.

  “It’s true. I heard Mr. Armadale givin’ the instructions to Mr. Pettifer, his solicitor, when that gentleman came down for a day’s pheasant shootin’ last winter.”

  “Do you know how much he left him?”

  “That I couldn’t say, sir. They was walking in front of me on the way to Hanging Covert, and as we was going downwind I couldn’t catch all as was said, but I heard the word thousand. ‘May it do him good,’ says I to myself; ‘I dessay he needs it, for he’s always tryin’ to make a bit for hisself at horse-coping.’”

  “Have Mr. Degerdon and Captain Fanshaugh always made Wild Duck Wood a short-cut on to the Godstone road?” asked Vereker.

  “No, sir, only since Mr. Armadale was shot. As I was saying, Mr. Ralli’s soft with them.” Turning to his foster-daughter, he said, “If so be as you marry him, Trixie, girl, you’ll just have to put a bit o’ that temper of yours into him. He needs a bit of wiring up. I don’t see why they should be helping the police to find that pistol,” he said, addressing Vereker once more. “The inspector has more than enough men of his own to trample down covert.”