The Shrieking Pit
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Arthur J. Rees >> The Shrieking Pit
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"Yes, I've been told of that illness," said Mr. Cromering, meditating.
"Did he do or say anything while you were with him that would throw any
light on the subsequent tragic events of the night, for which he is now
under suspicion?"
Colwyn related what had happened at breakfast and afterwards. Mr.
Cromering listened attentively, and turning to Sir Henry Durwood asked
him if he had seen Ronald before the previous day.
"I saw him yesterday for the first time at the breakfast table," replied
Sir Henry Durwood. "I arrived only the previous night. He was taken ill
at breakfast. Mr. Colwyn and I assisted him to his room and left him
there. I know nothing whatever about him."
"What was the nature of his illness?" inquired the chief constable.
"It had some of the symptoms of a seizure," replied Sir Henry guardedly.
"I begged him, when he recovered, not to leave his room. I even offered
to communicate with his friends, by telephone, if he would give me their
address, but he refused."
"It is a pity he did not take your advice," responded the chief
constable. "He appears to have left the hotel shortly after his illness,
and walked along the coast to a little hamlet called Flegne, about ten
miles from here. He reached there in the evening, and put up at the
village inn, the _Golden Anchor_, for the night. He left early in the
morning, before anybody was up. Shortly afterwards the body of Mr. Roger
Glenthorpe, an elderly archaeologist, who had been staying at the inn
for some time past making researches into the fossil remains common to
that part of Norfolk, was found in a pit near the house. The tracks of
boot-prints from near the inn to the mouth of the pit, and back again,
indicate that Mr. Glenthorpe was murdered in his bedroom at the inn, and
his body afterwards carried by the murderer to the pit in which it was
found."
"In order to conceal the crime?" said Colwyn.
"Precisely. Two men employed by Mr. Glenthorpe saw the footprints
earlier in the morning, and when it was discovered that Mr. Glenthorpe
was missing, one of them was lowered into the pit by a rope and found
the body at the bottom. The pit forms a portion of a number of so-called
hut circles, or prehistoric shelters of the early Briton, which are not
uncommon in this part of Norfolk."
"And you have strong grounds for believing that this young man Ronald,
who was staying at the _Grand_ till yesterday, is the murderer?"
"The very strongest. He slept in the room next to the murdered man's,
and disappeared hurriedly in the early morning from the inn some time
before the body was discovered. It is his boot-tracks which led to and
from the pit where the body was found. A considerable sum of money has
been stolen from the deceased, and we have ascertained that Ronald was
in desperate straits for money. Another point against Ronald is that Mr.
Glenthorpe was stabbed, and a knife which was used by Ronald at the
dinner table that night is missing. It is believed that the murder was
committed with this knife. But if you feel interested in the case, Mr.
Colwyn, you had better hear the report of Police Constable Queensmead."
The chief constable touched a bell, and directed the policeman who
answered it to bring in Constable Queensmead.
The policeman who appeared in answer to this summons was a thickset
sturdy Norfolk man, with an intelligent face and shrewd dark eyes. On
the chief constable informing him that he was to give the gentlemen the
details of the _Golden Anchor_ murder, he produced a notebook from his
tunic, and commenced the story with official precision.
Ronald had arrived at the inn before dark on the previous evening, and
had asked for a bed for the night. A little later Mr. Glenthorpe, the
murdered man, who had been staying at the inn for some time past, had
come in for his dinner, and was so pleased to meet a gentleman in that
rough and lonely place that he had asked Ronald to dine with him. The
dinner was served in an upstairs sitting-room, and during the course of
the meal Mr. Glenthorpe talked freely of his scientific researches in
the district, and informed his guest that he had that day been to
Heathfield to draw L300 to purchase a piece of land containing some
valuable fossil remains which he intended to excavate. The two gentlemen
sat talking after dinner till between ten and eleven, and then retired
to rest in adjoining rooms, in a wing of the inn occupied by nobody
else. In the morning Ronald departed before anybody, except the servant,
was up, refusing to wait for his boots to be cleaned. The servant, who
had had the boots in her hands, had noticed that one of the boots had a
circular rubber heel on it, but not the other. Ronald gave her a pound
to pay for his bed, and the note was one of the first Treasury issue,
as were the notes which Mr. Glenthorpe had drawn from the bank at
Heathfield the day before. The men who had seen the footprints to the
pit earlier in the morning, informed Queensmead of their discovery on
learning that Mr. Glenthorpe had disappeared. Queensmead examined the
footprints, and, with the assistance of the men, recovered the body.
Queensmead telephoned a description of Ronald to the police stations
along the coast, then mounted his bicycle and caught the train at
Leyland in order to report the matter to the district headquarters at
Durrington.
"I suppose there is no doubt that the young man who stayed at the inn is
identical with Ronald," said the detective, when the constable had
finished his story. "Do the descriptions tally in every respect?"
"Read the particulars you have prepared for the hand-bills,
Queensmead," said the chief constable.
The constable produced a paper from his pocket and read: "Description of
wanted man: About 28 years of age, five feet nine or ten inches high,
fair complexion rather sunburnt, blue eyes, straight nose, fair hair,
tooth-brush moustache, clean-cut features, well-shaped hands and feet,
white, even teeth. Was attired in grey Norfolk or sporting lounge
jacket, knickerbockers and stockings to match, with soft grey hat of
same material. Wore a gold signet-ring on little finger of left hand.
Distinguishing marks, a small star-shaped scar on left cheek, slightly
drags left foot in walking. Manner superior, evidently a gentleman."
"That is conclusive enough," said Colwyn. "It tallies in every respect.
The scar is an unmistakable mark. I noticed it the first time I saw
Ronald."
"I noticed it also," said Sir Henry Durwood.
"It seems a clear case to me," said the chief constable. "I have signed
a warrant for Ronald's arrest, and Superintendent Galloway has notified
all the local stations along the coast to have the district searched. We
think it very possible that Ronald is in hiding somewhere in the
marshes. We have also notified the district railway stations to be on
the lookout for anybody answering his description, in case he tries to
escape by rail."
"It seems a strange case," remarked the detective thoughtfully. "Why
should a young man of Ronald's type leave his hotel and go across to
this remote inn, and commit this brutal murder?"
"He was very short of money. We have ascertained that he had been
requested to leave the hotel here because he could not pay his bill. He
has paid nothing since he has been here, and owed more than L30. The
proprietor told him yesterday morning, as he was going in to breakfast,
that he must leave the hotel at once if he could not pay his bill. He
went away shortly after the scene in the breakfast room which was
witnessed by you gentlemen, and left his luggage behind him. I suspect
the proprietor would not allow him to take his luggage until he had
discharged his bill."
"It strikes me as a remarkable case, nevertheless," said Colwyn. "I
should like to look into it a little further, with your permission."
"Certainly," replied the chief constable courteously. "Superintendent
Galloway will be in charge of the case. I suggested that he should ask
for a man to be sent down from Scotland Yard, but he does not think it
necessary. I feel sure that he will be delighted to have the assistance
of such a celebrated detective as yourself. When are you starting for
Flegne, Galloway?"
"In half an hour," replied the superintendent. "I shall have to walk
from Leyland--five miles or more. The train does not go beyond there."
"Then I will drive you over in my car," said the detective.
"In that case perhaps you'll permit me to accompany you," said the chief
constable. "I should very much like to observe your methods."
"And I too," said Sir Henry Durwood.
CHAPTER IV
The road to Flegne skirted the settled and prosperous cliff uplands,
thence ran through the sea marshes which stretched along that part of
the Norfolk coast as far as the eye could reach until they were merged
and lost to view in the cold northern mists.
The road, after leaving the uplands, descended in a sinuous curve
towards the sea, but the party in the motor car were stopped on their
way down by a young mounted officer, who, on learning of their
destination, told them they would have to make an inland detour for some
miles, as the military authorities had closed that part of the coast to
ordinary traffic.
As they turned away from the coast, the chief constable informed Colwyn
that the prohibited area was full of troops guarding a little bay called
Leyland Hoop, where the water was so deep that hostile transports might
anchor close inshore, and where, according to ancient local tradition,
"He who would Old England win,
Must at the Leyland Hoop begin."
After traversing a mile or so of open country, and passing through one
or two scattered villages, they turned back to the coast again on the
other side of a high green headland which marked the end of the
prohibited area, and, crossing the bridge of a shallow muddy river,
found themselves in the area of the marshes.
It was a region of swamps and stagnant dykes, of tussock land and wet
flats, with scarcely a stir of life in any part of it, and nothing to
take the eye except a stone cottage here and there.
The marshes stretched from the road to the sea, nearly a mile away. Man
had almost given up the task of attempting to wrest a living from this
inhospitable region. The boat channels which threaded the ooze were
choked with weed and covered with green slime from long disuse, the
little stone quays were thick with moss, the rotting planks of a broken
fishing boat were foul with the encrustations of long years, the stone
cottages by the roadside seemed deserted. Here and there the marshes had
encroached upon the far side of the road, creeping half a mile or more
farther inland, destroying the wholesome earth like rust corroding
steel, and stretching slimy tentacles towards the farmlands on the rise.
Humanity had retreated from the inroads of the sea only after a stubborn
fight. The ruins of an Augustinian priory, a crumbling fragment of a
Norman tower, the mouldering remnant of a castellated hall, showed how
prolonged had been the struggle with the elements of Nature before Man
had acknowledged his defeat and retreated, leaving hostages behind him.
And--significant indication of the bitterness of the fight--it was to be
noted that, while the builders of a bygone generation had built to face
the sea, the handful of their successors who still kept up the losing
fight had built their beach-stone cottages with sturdy stone backs to the
road, for the greater protection of the inmates from the fierce winter
gales which swept across the marshes from the North Sea.
The car had travelled some miles through this desolate region when the
chief constable directed Colwyn's attention to a spire rising from the
flats a mile or so away, and said it was the church of Flegne-next-sea.
Colwyn increased his speed a little, and in a few minutes the car had
reached the outskirts of the little hamlet, which consisted of a
straggling row of beach-stone cottages, a few gaunt farm-houses on the
rise, and a cruciform church standing back from the village on a little
hill, with high turret or beacon lights which had warned the North Sea
mariners of a former generation of the dangers of that treacherous
coast.
In times past Flegne-next-sea--pronounced "Fly" by the natives, "Fleen"
by etymologists, and "Flegney" by the rare intrusive Cockney--had
doubtless been a prosperous little port, but the encroaching sea had
long since killed its trade, scattered its inhabitants, and reduced it
to a spectre of human habitation compelled to keep the scene of its
former activities after life had departed. Half the stone cottages were
untenanted, with broken windows, flapping doors, and gardens overgrown
with rank marsh weeds. The road through the village had fallen into
disrepair, and oozed beneath the weight of the car, a few boards thrown
higgledy-piggledy across in places representing the local effort to
preserve the roadway from the invading marshes. The little canal quay--a
wooden one--was a tangle of rotting boards and loose piles, and the
stagnant green water of the shallow canal was abandoned to a few grey
geese, which honked angrily at the passing car. There was no sign of
life in the village street, and no sound except the autumn wind moaning
across the marshes and the boom of the distant sea against the
breakwater.
"There's the inn--straight in front," said Police-Constable Queensmead,
pointing to it.
The _Golden Anchor_ inn must have been built in the days of Sir
Cloudesley Shovel, for nothing remained of the maritime prosperity
which had originally bestowed the name upon the building. It was of
rough stone, coloured a dirty white, with two queer circular windows
high up in the wall on one side, the other side resting on a little,
round-shouldered hill. It was built facing away from the sea like the
beach-stone cottages, from which it was separated by a patch of common.
From the rear of the inn the marshes stretched in unbroken monotony to
the line of leaping white sea dashing sullenly against the breakwater
wall, and ran for miles north and south in a desolate uniformity, still
and grey as the sky above, devoid of life except for a few migrant birds
feeding in the salt creeks or winging their way seaward in strong,
silent flight. The rays of the afternoon sun, momentarily piercing the
thick clouds, fell on the white wall and round glazed windows of the
inn, giving it a sinister resemblance to a dead face.
Colwyn brought his car to a standstill on the edge of the saturated
strip of common.
"We shall have to walk across," he said.
"Nobody will run off with the car," said Galloway, scrambling down from
his seat.
"The murderer brought the body from the back of the house across this
green, and carried it up that rise in front of the inn," said
Queensmead. "You cannot see the pit from here, but it is close to that
little wood on the summit. The footprints do not show in the grass, but
they are very plain in the clay a little farther on, and lead straight
to the pit."
"How deep is the pit?" asked Colwyn.
"About thirty feet. It was not an easy matter to bring up the body."
"We will examine the pit and the footprints later," said Mr. Cromering.
"Let us go inside first."
Picking their way across the common to the front of the inn, they
encountered a little group of men conversing underneath the rusty old
anchor signboard which dangled from a stout stanchion above the front
door of the inn. Some men, wearing sea-boots and jerseys, others in
labouring garb, splashed with clay and mud, were standing about. They
ceased their conversation as the party from the motor-car appeared
around the corner, and, moving a respectful distance away, watched them
covertly.
The front door of the inn was closed. Superintendent Galloway tapped at
it sharply, and after the lapse of a moment or two the door was opened,
and a man appeared on the threshold. Seeing the police uniforms he
stepped outside as if to make more room for the party to enter the
narrow passage from which he had emerged. Colwyn noticed that he was so
tall that he had to stoop in the old-fashioned doorway as he came out.
Seen at close quarters, this man was a strange specimen of humanity. He
was well over six feet in height, and so cadaverous, thin and gaunt that
he might well have been mistaken for the presiding genius of the marshes
who had stricken that part of the Norfolk coast with aridity and
barrenness. But there was no lack of strength in his frame as he
advanced briskly towards his visitors. His face was not the least
remarkable part of him. It was ridiculously small and narrow for so big
a frame, with a great curved beak of a nose, and small bright eyes set
close together. Those eyes were at the present moment glancing with
bird-like swiftness from one to the other of his visitors.
"You are the innkeeper--the landlord of this place?" asked Mr.
Cromering.
"At your service, sir. Won't you go inside?" His voice was the best
part of him; soft and gentle, with a cultivated accent which suggested
that the speaker had known a different environment at some time or
other.
"Show us into a private room," said Mr. Cromering.
The innkeeper escorted the party along the passage, and took them into a
room with a low ceiling and sanded floor, smelling of tobacco,
explaining, as he placed chairs, that it was the bar parlour, but they
would be quiet and free from interruption in it, because he had closed
the inn that day in anticipation of the police visit.
"Quite right--very proper," said the chief constable.
"Will you and the other gentlemen take any refreshment, after your
journey?" suggested the innkeeper. "I'm afraid the resources of the inn
are small, but there is some excellent old brandy."
He stretched out an arm towards the bell rope behind him. Colwyn noticed
that his hand was long and thin and yellow--a skeleton claw covered with
parchment.
"Never mind the brandy just now," said Mr. Cromering, taking on himself
to refuse on behalf of his companions the proffered refreshment. "We
have much to do and it will be time enough for refreshments afterwards.
We will view the body first, and make inquiries after. Where is the
body, Benson?"
"Upstairs, sir."
"Take us to the room."
The innkeeper led the way upstairs along a dark and narrow passage. When
he reached a door near the end, he opened it and stood aside for them to
enter.
"This is the room," he said, in a low voice. It was Colwyn's keen eye
that noted the key in the door. "What is that key doing in the door, on
the outside?" he asked. "How long has it been there?"
"The maid found it there this morning, sir, when she went up with Mr.
Glenthorpe's hot water. That made her suspect something must be wrong,
because Mr. Glenthorpe was in the habit of locking his door of a night
and placing the key under his pillow. So, after knocking and getting no
answer, she opened the door, and found the room empty."
"The door was not locked, though the key was in the door?"
"No, sir, and everything in the room was just as usual. Nothing had been
disturbed."
"And was that bedroom window open when you found the room empty?" asked
Superintendent Galloway, pointing to it through the open doorway.
"Yes, sir--just as you see it now. I gave orders that nothing was to be
touched."
"Ronald slept in this room," said Queensmead, indicating the door of the
adjoining bedroom.
"We will look at that later," said Galloway.
The interior of the room they entered was surprisingly light and
cheerful and spacious, having nothing in common with those low gloomy
vaults, crammed with clumsy furniture and moth-eaten stuffed animals,
which generally pass muster as bedrooms in English country inns. Instead
of the small circular windows of the south side, there was a large
modern two-paned window in a line with the door, opening on to the other
side of the house. The bottom pane was up, and the window opened as wide
as possible. A very modern touch, unusual in a remote country inn, was a
rose coloured gas globe suspended from the ceiling, in the middle of the
room. The furniture belonged to a past period, but it was handsome and
well-kept--a Spanish mahogany wardrobe, chest of drawers and washstand
with chairs to match. Modern articles, such as a small writing-desk near
the window, some library books, a fountain pen, a reading-lamp by the
bedside, and an attache case, suggested the personal possessions and
modern tastes of the last occupant. A comfortable carpet covered the
floor, and some faded oil-paintings adorned the walls.
The bed--a large wooden one, but not a fourposter--stood on the
left-hand side of the room from the entrance, with the head against the
wall nearest the outside passage, and the foot partly in line with the
open window, which was about eight feet away from it. The door when
pushed back swung just clear of a small bedroom table beside the bed, on
which the reading lamp stood, with a book beside it. The other side of
the bed was close to the wall which divided the room from the next
bedroom, so that there was a large clear space on the outside, between
the bed and the door. The gas fitting, which was suspended from the
ceiling in this open space, hung rather low, the bottom of the globe
being not more than six feet from the floor. The globe was cracked, and
the incandescent burner was broken.
The murdered man had been laid in the middle of the bed, and covered
with a sheet. Superintendent Galloway quietly drew the sheet away,
revealing the massive white head and clear-cut death mask of a man of
sixty or sixty-five; a fine powerful face, benign in expression, with a
chin and mouth of marked character and individuality. But the distorted
contour of the half-open mouth, and the almost piteous expression of the
unclosed sightless eyes, seemed to beseech the assistance of those who
now bent over him, revealing only too clearly that death had come
suddenly and unexpectedly.
"He was a great archaeologist--one of the greatest in England," said Mr.
Cromering gently, with something of a tremor in his voice, as he gazed
down at the dead man's face. "To think that such a man should have been
struck down by an assassin's blow. What a loss!"
"Let us see how he was murdered," said the more practical Galloway, who
was standing beside his superior officer. He drew off the covering sheet
as he spoke, and dropped it lightly on the floor.
The body thus revealed was that of a slightly built man of medium
height. It was clad in a flannel sleeping suit, spattered with mud and
clay, and oozing with water. The arms were inclining outwards from the
body, and the legs were doubled up. There were a few spots of blood on
the left breast, and immediately beneath, almost on the left side, just
visible in the stripe of the pyjama jacket, was the blow which had
caused death--a small orifice like a knife cut, just over the heart.
"It is a very small wound to have killed so strong a man," said Mr.
Cromering. "There is hardly any blood."
Sir Henry examined the wound closely. "The blow was struck with great
force, and penetrated the heart. The weapon used--a small, thin, steel
instrument--and internal bleeding, account for the small external flow."
"What do you mean by a thin, steel instrument?" asked Superintendent
Galloway. "Would an ordinary table-knife answer that description?"
"Certainly. In fact, the nature of the wound strongly suggests that it
was made by a round-headed, flat-bladed weapon, such as an ordinary
table or dinner knife. The thrust was made horizontally,--that is,
across the ribs and between them, instead of perpendicularly, which is
the usual method of stabbing. Apparently the murderer realised that his
knife was too broad for the purpose, and turned it the other way, so as
to make sure of penetrating the ribs and reaching the heart."
"Does not that suggest a rather unusual knowledge of human anatomy on
the murderer's part?" asked Mr. Cromering.
"I do not think so. Anybody can tell how far apart the human ribs are by
feeling them."
"It is easy to see, Sir Henry, that the wound was made by a thin-bladed
knife, but why do you think it was also round-headed?" asked
Superintendent Galloway. "Might it not have been a sharp-pointed one?"
"Or even a dagger?" suggested Mr. Cromering.
"Certainly not a dagger. The ordinary dagger would have made a wider
perforation with a corresponding increase in the blood-flow. My theory of
a round-headed knife is based on the circumstance of a portion of the
deceased's pyjama jacket having been carried into the wound. A
sharp-pointed knife would have made a clean cut through the jacket."
"I see," said Superintendent Galloway, with a sharp nod.
"Therefore, we may assume, in the case before us,"--Sir Henry Durwood
waved a fat white hand in the direction of the corpse as though he were
delivering an anatomical lecture before a class of medical
students--"that the victim was killed with a flat, round knife with a
round edge, held sideways. Furthermore, the position of the wound
reveals that the blow was too much on the left side to pierce the centre
of the heart directly, but was a slanting blow, delivered with such
force that it has probably pierced the heart on the _right_ side,
causing instant death."
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