The Shrieking Pit

A >> Arthur J. Rees >> The Shrieking Pit

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"It was between five and six o'clock, sir, when the young gentleman came
to the front door and asked for the landlord. I told him he was out, but
would be back shortly. The young gentleman said he was very tired, as he
had walked a long distance and lost his way in the marshes, and would I
show him into a private room and send him some refreshments. I took him
into the bar parlour--this room, sir--and brought him refreshments. He
seemed very tired--hardly able to lift one leg after the other."

"Did he look ill--or strange?"

"I didn't notice anything strange about him, sir, but he dropped into a
chair as though he was exhausted, and told me to send the landlord to
him as soon as he came in. I left him sitting there, and when Mr. Benson
returned I told him, and he went in to him. I didn't see the young
gentleman again until I waited on him and Mr. Glenthorpe at dinner in
the upstairs sitting-room."

"Very good. Tell us what happened there."

"I laid the table, and took up the dinner at half-past seven. Those were
Mr. Glenthorpe's orders. When I went up the first time the table was
covered with flints and fossils, which Mr. Glenthorpe was showing the
young gentleman, and I helped Mr. Glenthorpe put these back into the
cupboards, and then I laid the table. When I took up the dinner the
gentlemen sat down to it, and Mr. Glenthorpe rang for Mr. Benson, and
told him to bring up some sherry. When the sherry came up Mr. Glenthorpe
told the young gentleman that it was a special wine sent down by his
London wine merchants, and he asked Mr. Ronald what he thought of it.
Mr. Ronald said he thought it was an excellent dry wine. The gentlemen
didn't talk much during dinner, though Mr. Glenthorpe was a little upset
about the partridges. He said they had been cooked too dry. He asked the
young gentleman what he thought of them, but I don't know what he
replied, for I was not watching his lips.

"Mr. Glenthorpe quite recovered himself by the time coffee was served,
and was talking a lot about his researches in the neighbourhood. It was
very learned talk, but it seemed to interest Mr. Ronald, for he asked a
number of questions. Mr. Glenthorpe seemed very pleased with his
interest, and told him about a valuable discovery made in a field near
what he called the hut circles. He said he had bought the field off the
farmer for L300, and was going to commence his excavations immediately.
As the farmer refused to take a cheque for the land he had been over to
the bank at Heathfield for the money, and had brought it back with him
so as to pay it over in the morning and take possession of the field.
Mr. Glenthorpe complained that the bank had made him take all the money
in Treasury notes, and he took them out of his pocket and showed them to
the young gentleman, saying how bulky they were, and pointing out that
they were all of the first issue."

"And what did Ronald say to that?"

If the chief constable's question covered a trap, the waiter seemed
unconscious of it.

"I wasn't looking at him, sir, and did not hear his reply. After putting
the money back in his pocket, Mr. Glenthorpe told me to go downstairs
and tell Mr. Benson to bring up some of the old brandy. Mr. Benson came
back with me, and Mr. Glenthorpe took the bottle from him and filled the
glasses himself, telling the young gentleman that the brandy was the
best in England, a relic of the old smuggling days, but far too good for
scoundrels who had never paid the King's revenue one half-penny. Then
when Mr. Benson had left the room he began to talk about the field
again, and how anxious he was to start the excavations. That was about
all I heard, sir, for shortly afterwards Mr. Glenthorpe told me to clear
away the things, which took me several trips downstairs, because, not
having the full use of my right hand, I have to use a small tray. It was
not till this morning, when I was cleaning the cutlery, that I noticed
that one of the knives I had taken upstairs the night before was
missing. I think that is all, sir."

The silence which followed, broken only by the rapid travelling of
Superintendent Galloway's pen across the paper, revealed how intently
the fat man's auditors had followed his whispered recital of the events
before the murder. It was Superintendent Galloway who, putting down his
fountain pen, asked the waiter to describe the knife he had missed.

"It was a small, white-handled knife, sir--not one of the dinner knives,
but one of the smaller ones."

"Are you sure it was one of the knives you took upstairs last night?"

"Quite sure, sir. We are very short of good cutlery, and I picked out
this knife to put by the young gentleman's plate because it was a very
good one. It and the carving-knife are the only two knives we have in
that particular white-handled pattern."

"Was this knife sharp?"

"Very sharp, with a rather thin blade. I keep all my cutlery in good
order, sir."

"You seem to have heard a lot that passed last night in spite of your
deafness," said Superintendent Galloway, in the blustering manner he had
found very useful in browbeating rural witnesses in the police courts.
"Is it customary for waiters to listen to everything that is said when
they are waiting at table?"

"I did not hear everything, sir," rejoined the waiter, and his soft
whisper was in striking contrast to the superintendent's hectoring
tones. "I explained to the other gentleman that I heard very little the
young gentleman said, because I wasn't watching his lips. It was
principally Mr. Glenthorpe's part of the conversation I have related. I
followed almost everything he said because I was watching his lips
closely the whole of the time."

"Why?" snapped Superintendent Galloway.

"It was Mr. Glenthorpe's strict instructions that I was to watch his
lips closely every time I waited on him, because of my infirmity. He
disliked very much being waited on by a deaf waiter when first he came
to the inn. He said he didn't want to have to bellow out when he wanted
anything. But when he found that I could understand lip language, and
could follow what he was saying by watching his lips, he allowed me to
wait on him, but he gave me strict instructions never to take my eyes
off him when I was waiting on him, because he disliked having to repeat
an order."

At the request of Sir Henry, Superintendent Galloway asked the waiter if
he had noticed anything peculiar in the actions of the murdered man's
guest during the dinner. The waiter replied that he had not noticed the
young gentleman particularly. So far as his observation went the young
gentleman had acted just like an ordinary young gentleman, and he had
noticed nothing strange or eccentric about him.

Mr. Cromering decided to occupy the remaining time at his disposal by
questioning Ann. The stout servant was brought from the kitchen in a
state of trepidation, and, after curtsying awkwardly to the assembled
gentlemen, flopped heavily into a chair, covered her face with her
apron, and burst into sobs. Her story--which was extracted from her with
much difficulty--bore out the innkeeper's account of her early morning
interview with Ronald. She said the poor young gentleman had opened the
door when she knocked with his tea. He was fully dressed, with his boots
in his hand, and he said he wouldn't wait for any breakfast, though she
had offered to cook him some fresh fish the master had caught the day
before. He asked her to clean his boots, but as she was carrying them
away he called her back and said he would wear them as they were. They
were all covered with mud--a regular mask of mud. She wanted to rub the
mud off, but he said that didn't matter: he was in a hurry to get away.
While she had them in her hands she turned them up and looked at the
bottoms, intending to put them to the kitchen fire to dry them if the
soles were wet, and it was then she noticed that there was a circular
rubber heel on one which was missing on the other--only the iron peg
being left. She took particular notice of the peg, because she intended
to hammer it down in the kitchen, thinking it must be very uncomfortable
to walk on, but the young gentleman didn't give her the chance--he just
took the boots from her and walked into his room, shutting the door
behind him.

Thus far Ann proceeded, between convulsive sobs and jelly-like tremors
of her fat frame. By dint of further questioning, it was elicited from
her that during this colloquy at the bedroom door the young gentleman
had put a pound note into her hand, and told her to give it to her
master in payment of his bill. "It won't be so much as that, sir," she
had said. "What about the change?"

"Oh, damn the change!" the young gentleman had said, very
impatient-like, and then he had said, "Here's something for yourself,"
and put five shillings into her hand.

"Did the young gentleman seem at all excited during the time you saw
him?" asked the chief constable, anticipating the inevitable question
from Sir Henry.

"I don't know what you mean by excited, sir. He seemed rarely impatient
to be gone, though anybody might be excited at having to walk across
them nasty marshes in the morning mist without a bite to stay the
stomach. I only hope he didn't catch a chill, the poor young man."

Further questions on this point only brought forth another shower of
tears, and a sobbing asseveration that she hadn't taken particular
notice of the young gentleman, who was a kind, liberal-hearted
gentleman, no matter what some folk might think. It was evident that the
tip of five shillings had won her heart.

The chief constable waited for the storm to subside before he was able
to extract the information that Ann hadn't seen the young gentleman
leave the house. He had gone when she took up Mr. Glenthorpe's breakfast
nearly an hour later, and made the discovery that the key of Mr.
Glenthorpe's room was in the outside of the door, and his room empty.
The young gentleman could easily have left the inn without being seen,
for she and Charles were in the kitchen, and nobody else was downstairs
at the time.

It was in response to Colwyn's whispered suggestion that the chief
constable asked Ann if she had turned off the gas at the meter the
previous night. Yes, she had, she said. She heard the gentlemen leave
the sitting-room upstairs and say good-night to each other as they went
to their bedrooms, and she turned off the gas at the meter underneath
the stair five minutes afterwards, when she had finished her ironing,
and went to bed herself. That would be about half-past ten.

Mr. Cromering, who did not understand the purport of the question, was
satisfied with the answer, and allowed the servant to retire. But
Colwyn, as he went out to the front to get the motor ready for the
journey to Heathfield, was of a different opinion.

"Ann may have turned off the gas as she said," he thought, "but it was
turned on again during the night. Did Ann know this, and keep it back,
or was it turned on and off again without her knowledge?"

CHAPTER IX

"Everything fits in beautifully," said Superintendent Galloway
confidently. "I never knew a clearer case. All that remains for me to do
is to lay my hands on this chap Ronald, and an intelligent jury will see
to the rest."

The police official and the detective had dined together in the small
bar parlour on Colwyn's return from driving Mr. Cromering and Sir Henry
Durwood to Heathfield Station. The superintendent had done more than
justice to the meal, and a subsequent glass of the smugglers' brandy had
so mellowed the milk of human kindness in his composition that he felt
inclined for a little friendly conversation with his companion.

"You are very confident," said Colwyn.

"Of course I am confident. I have reason to be so. Everything I have
seen to-day supports my original theory about this crime."

"And what is your theory as to the manner in which this crime was
committed? I have gathered a general idea of the line you are taking by
listening to your conversation this afternoon, but I should like you to
state your theory in precise terms. It is an interesting case, with some
peculiar points about it which a frank discussion might help to
elucidate."

Superintendent Galloway looked suspiciously at Colwyn out of his small
hard grey eyes. His official mind scented an attempt to trap him, and
his Norfolk prudence prompted him to get what he could from the
detective but to give nothing away in return.

"I see you're suspicious of me, Galloway," continued Colwyn with a
smile. "You've heard of city detectives and their ways, and you're
thinking to yourself that a Norfolk man is more than a match for any of
them."

This sally was so akin to what was passing in the superintendent's mind
that a grim smile momentarily relaxed his rugged features.

"My thoughts are my own, I suppose," he said.

"Not when you've just given them away," replied Colwyn, in a bantering
tone. "My dear Galloway, your ingenuous countenance is a mirror to your
mind, in which he who runs may read. But you are quite wrong in
suspecting me. I have no ulterior motive. My only interest in this
crime--or in any crime--is to solve it. Anybody can have the credit, as
far as I am concerned. Newspaper notoriety is nothing to me."

"You've managed to get a good deal of it without looking for it, then,"
retorted the superintendent cannily. "It was only the other day I was
reading a long article in one of the London newspapers about you,
praising you for tracking the criminals in the Treasury Bonds case. The
police were not mentioned."

"Fame--or notoriety--sometimes comes to those who seek it least,"
replied the detective genially. "I assure you that article came unasked.
I'm a stranger to the political art of keeping sweet with the
journalists--it was a statesman, you know, who summed up gratitude as a
lively sense of favours to come. Now, in this case, let us play fair,
actuated by the one desire to see that justice is done. This case does
not strike me as quite such a simple affair as it seems to you. You
approach it with a preconceived theory to which you are determined to
adhere. Your theory is plausible and convincing--to some extent--but
that is all the more reason why you should examine and test every link
in the chain. You cannot solve difficult points by ignoring them and, to
my mind, there are some difficult and perplexing features about this
case which do not altogether fit in with your theory."

"If my mind is an open book to you perhaps you'll tell me what my theory
is," responded Superintendent Galloway, sourly.

"Yes; that's a fair challenge." The detective pushed back his chair, and
stood with his back against the mantelpiece, with a cigar in his mouth.
"Your theory in this case is that chance and opportunity have made the
crime and the criminal. Chance brings this young man Ronald to this
lonely Norfolk inn, and sees to it that he is allowed to remain when the
landlord wants to turn him away. Chance throws him into the society of a
man of culture and education, who is only too glad of the opportunity of
relieving the tedium of his surroundings in this rough uncultivated
place by passing a few hours in the companionship of a man of his own
rank of life. Chance contrives that this gentleman shall have in his
possession a large sum of money which he shows to Ronald, who is greatly
in need of money. Opportunity suggests the murder, provides the weapon,
and gives Ronald the next room to his intended victim in a wing of the
inn occupied by nobody else.

"Your theory as to how the murder was actually committed strikes me as
possible enough--up to a certain point. You think that Ronald, after
waiting until everybody in the inn is likely to be asleep, steals out of
his own room to the room of his victim. He finds the door locked.
Chance, however, has thoughtfully provided him with a window opening on
to a hillside, which enables him to climb out of his own window and
into the window of the next room. He gets in, murders Mr. Glenthorpe,
secures his money, and, finding the key of his bedroom under the pillow,
carries the body of his victim downstairs, and outside, casting it into
a deep hole some distance from the house, in the hope of preventing or
retarding discovery of the crime. Through an oversight he forgets the
key in the door, which he had placed in the outside before carrying off
the body, intending when he returned to lock the door and carry the key
away with him.

"Next morning you have the highly suspicious circumstance of the young
man's hurried departure, his refusal to have his boots cleaned, the
incident of the L1 note, and the unshakable fact that the footprints
leading to and from the pit where the body was discovered had been made
by his boots.

"As a further contributory link in the chain of evidence against Ronald,
you intend to use the fact that he was turned out of the Grand Hotel,
Durrington, the previous day because he couldn't pay his hotel bill,
because this fact, combined with the fact that Mr. Glenthorpe showed him
the money he had drawn from the bank at Heathfield, supplies a strong
motive for the crime. In this connection you intend to try to establish
that the Treasury note which Ronald left to pay his inn bill was one of
those in Mr. Glenthorpe's possession, because it happens to be one of
the First Treasury issue, printed in black and white, and all Mr.
Glenthorpe's notes were of that issue, according to the murdered man's
own statement. That, I take it, is the police theory of this case."

"It is," said Superintendent Galloway. "You've put it a bit more
fancifully than I should, but it comes to the same thing. But what do
you make out of the incident at the Grand Hotel, Durrington, yesterday
morning? You were there, and saw it all. Does it seem strange to you
that Ronald should have come straight to this inn and committed a murder
after making that scene at the hotel? Do you think it suggests that
Ronald has, well--impulses of violence, let us say?" Superintendent
Galloway poured himself out another glass of old brandy and sipped it
deliberately, watching the detective cautiously between the sips.

Colwyn was silent for a moment. He was quick to comprehend the
double-barrelled motive which underlay the superintendent's question,
and he had no intention of letting the police officer pump him for his
own ends.

"Sir Henry Durwood would be better able to answer that question than I,"
he said.

"I asked him when we were driving over here this afternoon, but he shut
up like an oyster--you know what these professional men are, with their
stiff-and-starched ideas of etiquette," grumbled the superintendent.

A flicker of amusement showed in Colwyn's eyes. Really the
superintendent was easily drawn, for an East Anglian countryman. "After
all, it is only Sir Henry Durwood's opinion that Ronald intended
violence at the _Grand_," he said. "Sir Henry did not give him the
opportunity to carry out his intention--if he had such an intention."

"Exactly my opinion," exclaimed Superintendent Galloway, eagerly rising
to the fly. "I have ascertained that Ronald's behaviour during the time
he was staying at the hotel was that of an ordinary sane Englishman. The
proprietor says he was quite a gentleman, with nothing eccentric or
peculiar about him, and the servants say the same. They are the best
judges, after all. And nobody noticed anything peculiar about him at the
breakfast table except yourself and Sir Henry--and what happened?
Nothing, except that he was a bit excited--and no wonder, after the
young man had just been ordered to leave the hotel. Then Sir Henry
grabbed hold of him and he fainted--or pretended to faint; it may have
been all part of his game. Sir Henry may have thought he intended to do
something or other, but no British judge would admit that as evidence
for the defence. This chap Ronald is as sane as you or me, and a deep,
cunning cold-blooded scoundrel to boot. If the defence try to put up a
plea of insanity they'll find themselves in the wrong box. There's not a
jury in the world that wouldn't hang him on the evidence against him."

This time Colwyn could not forbear smiling at the guileless way in which
Superintendent Galloway had revealed the thoughts which had been passing
through his mind. But his amusement was momentary, and it was in a
grave, earnest tone that he replied:

"The hotel incident is a puzzling one, but I agree with you that it
doesn't enter into the police case against Ronald. It is your duty to
deal with the facts of the case, and if you think that Ronald committed
this murder----"

"If I think that Ronald committed this murder!" Superintendent
Galloway's interruption was both amazed and indignant. "I'm as certain
he committed the murder as if I saw him do it with my own eyes. Did you,
or anybody else, ever see a clearer case?"

"It is because the circumstantial evidence against him is so strong that
I speak as I do," continued Colwyn, in the same earnest tones. "Innocent
men have been hanged in England before now on circumstantial evidence.
It is for that very reason that we should guard ourselves against the
tendency to accept the circumstantial evidence against him as proof of
his guilt, instead of examining all the facts with an open mind. We are
the investigators of the circumstances: it is not for us to prejudge.
That is the worst of circumstantial evidence: it tends to prejudgment,
and sometimes to the ignoring of circumstances and facts which might
tell in favour of the suspect, if they were examined with a more
impartial eye. It is for these reasons that I am always careful to
suspend judgment in cases of circumstantial evidence, and examine
carefully even the smallest trifles which might tell in favour of the
man to whom circumstantial evidence points.

"Have you discovered anything, since you have been at the inn, which
shakes the theory that Ronald is the murderer?"

"I have come to the conclusion that the case is much more complex and
puzzling than was at first supposed."

"I should like to know what makes you think that," returned
Superintendent Galloway. "Up to the present I have seen nothing to shake
my conviction that Ronald is the guilty man. What have you discovered
that makes you think otherwise?"

"I do not go as far as that--yet. But I have come across certain things
which, to my mind, need elucidation before it is possible to pronounce
definitely on Ronald's guilt or innocence. To take them consecutively,
let me repeat that I cannot reconcile Ronald's excitable conduct at the
Durrington hotel with his supposed actions at the inn. In the former
case he behaved like a man who, whether insane or merely excited, had
not the slightest fear of the consequences. At this inn he acted like a
crafty cautious scoundrel who had weighed the consequences of his acts
beforehand, and took every possible precaution to save his own skin.
You see nothing inconsistent in this----"

"I do not," interjected the superintendent firmly.

"Quite so. Then, the next point that perplexes me is why Ronald took the
trouble to carry the body of his victim to the pit and throw it in."

"For the motive of concealment, and to retard discovery. But for the
footprints it would probably have given him several days--perhaps
weeks--in which to make good his escape."

"Did he not run a bigger risk of discovery by carrying the body
downstairs in an occupied house, and across several hundred yards of
open land close to the village?"

"Not in a remote spot like this. They keep early hours in this part of
the country. I guarantee if you walked through the village now you
wouldn't see a soul stirring."

"Ronald was not likely to know that. Next, how did Ronald, a stranger to
the place, know the locality of this pit so accurately as to be able to
walk straight to it?"

"Easily. He might have approached the inn from that side, and passed it
on his way. And nothing is more likely than Mr. Glenthorpe would tell
him about the pit in the course of his conversation about the
excavations. There is also the possibility that Ronald knew of the
existence of the pit from a previous visit to this part of the country."

"My next point is that Ronald was put to sleep in what he imagined was
an upstairs bedroom. How did he discover that his bedroom, and the
bedroom of Mr. Glenthorpe's adjoining, opened on to a hillside which
enabled him to get out of one bedroom and into the other?"

"Again, Mr. Glenthorpe probably told him--he seems to have been a
garrulous old chap, according to all accounts. Or Ronald may have
looked out of his window when he was retiring, and seen it for himself.
I always look out of a bedroom window, and particularly if it is a
strange bedroom, before getting into bed."

"These are matters of opinion, and, though your explanations are
possible ones, I do not agree with you. We are looking at this case from
entirely different points of view. You believe that Ronald committed the
murder, and you are allowing that belief to colour everything connected
with the case. I am looking at this murder as a mystery which has not
yet been solved, and, without excluding the possibility that Ronald is
the murderer, I am not going, because of the circumstantial evidence
against him, to accept his guilt as a foregone conclusion until I have
carefully examined and tested all the facts for and against that theory.

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