The Shrieking Pit

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

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"The one outstanding probability is that Mr. Glenthorpe was murdered for
his money. Now, excluding for the time being the circumstantial evidence
against Ronald--though without losing sight of it--the next point that
arises is was he murdered by somebody in the inn or by somebody from
outside--say, for example, one of the villagers employed on his
excavation works. The waiter's story of the missing knife suggests the
former theory, but I do not regard that evidence as incontrovertible.
The knife might have been stolen from the kitchen by a man who had been
drinking at the bar; indeed, until we have recovered the weapon it is
not even established that this was the knife with which the murder was
committed. It might have been some other knife. We must not take the
waiter's story for granted until we have recovered the knife, and not
necessarily then. But that story, as it stands, inclines to support the
theory that the murder was committed by somebody in the inn. On the
other hand, the theory of an outside murderer lends itself to a very
plausible reconstruction of the crime. Suppose, for example, the murder
had been committed by one of Mr. Glenthorpe's workmen, actuated by the
dual motives of revenge and robbery, or by either motive. Apparently the
whole village knew of Mr. Glenthorpe's intention to draw this money
which was in his possession when he was murdered--he seems to have been
a man who talked very freely of his private affairs--and the amount,
L300, would be a fortune to an agricultural labourer or a fisherman.
Such a man would know all about the bedroom windows on that side of the
inn opening on to the hillside, and would naturally choose that means of
entry to commit the crime. And, if he were a labourer in Mr.
Glenthorpe's employ, the thought of concealing the body by casting it
into the pit would probably occur to him."

"I do not think there is much in that theory," said Superintendent
Galloway thoughtfully. "Still, it is worth putting to the test. I'll
inquire in the morning if any of the villagers are suspicious
characters, or whether any of Glenthorpe's men had a grudge against
him."

"Now let us leave theories and speculations and come to facts. Our
investigations of the murdered man's room this afternoon gave us several
clues, not the least important of which is that we are enabled to fix
the actual time of the murder with some degree of accuracy. It is always
useful, in a case of murder, to be able to establish the approximate
time at which it was committed. In this case, the murder was certainly
committed between the hours of 11 p.m. and 11.30 p.m., and, in all
probability, not much before half-past eleven."

"How do you fix it so accurately as that?" asked the police officer,
looking keenly at the detective.

"According to Ann, the gentlemen went to their rooms about half-past
ten, and she turned off the gas downstairs shortly afterwards, and went
to bed herself. When we examined the room this afternoon, we found
patches of red mud of the same colour and consistency of the soil
outside the window leading from the window to the bedside, and a
pool--a small isolated pool--of water near the open window. There were,
as you recollect, no footprints outside the window. On the other hand,
the footprints from the inn to the pit are clear and distinct. Rain
commenced to fall last night shortly before eleven, but it did not fall
heavily until eleven o'clock. From then till half-past eleven it was a
regular downpour, when it ceased, and it has not rained since. Now, the
patches of red mud in the bedroom, and the obliteration of footprints
outside the window, prove that the murderer entered the room during the
storm, but the footprints leading to the pit prove that the body was not
removed from the room until the rain had completely ceased, otherwise
they would have been obliterated also, or partly obliterated. These
facts make it clear that the murder was committed between eleven and
half-past, but the pool of water near the window enables us to fix the
time more accurately still, and say that he entered the room during the
time the rain was at its heaviest--that is, between ten minutes past and
half-past eleven."

"I'm hanged if I see how you fix it so definitely," said the
superintendent, who had been following the other's deductions with
interest. "The pool of water may have collected at any time, once the
window was open."

"My dear Galloway, you are working on the rule-of-thumb deduction that
the rain blew in the open window and formed the pool. As a matter of
fact, it did nothing of the kind. The wind was blowing the other way,
and _away_ from that side of the house. Furthermore, the hill on that
side of the inn acts as a natural barrier against rain and weather."

"Then how the deuce do you account for the water in the room?"

"Surely you have not forgotten the piece of black material we found
sticking on the nail outside the window?"

"I have not forgotten it, but I do not see how you connect it with the
pool of water."

"Because it is a piece of umbrella silk. The murderer was carrying an
umbrella--and an open umbrella--have you the piece of silk? If so, let
us look at it."

The superintendent produced the square inch of silk from his waistcoat
pocket, and examined it closely: "Of course it's umbrella silk," he
exclaimed, slapping his leg. "Funny I didn't recognise it at the time."

"Perhaps I wouldn't have recognised it myself, but for the fact that a
piece of umbrella silk formed an important clue in a recent case I was
engaged upon," replied the detective. "Experience counts for a
lot--sometimes. See, this piece of silk is hemmed on the edge--pretty
conclusive proof that the murderer was carrying the umbrella open, to
shield him from the rain, and that it caught on the nail outside the
window, tearing off the edge. He closed it as he got inside the window,
and placed it near the window-sill, and the rain dripped off it and
formed the pool of water. The size of the pool, and the fact that the
murderer carried an open umbrella to shield him, prove pretty
conclusively that he made his entrance into the room during the time the
rain was falling heaviest--which was between 11.10 p.m. and 11.30.

"We now come to what is the most important discovery of all--the pieces
of candle-grease we found in the murdered man's bedroom. They help to
establish two curious facts, the least important of which is that
somebody tried to light the gas in Mr. Glenthorpe's room last night,
and, failing to do so, went downstairs and turned on the gas at the
meter."

"What if they did?" grunted Superintendent Galloway, pouring out another
glass of brandy. He was secretly annoyed at having overlooked the clue
of the umbrella silk, and was human enough to be angry with the
detective for opening his eyes to the fact. "I don't see how you're
going to prove it, and, even if you did, it doesn't matter a dump one
way or the other."

"We'll let that point go," rejoined Colwyn curtly. "Your attitude in
shutting your eyes to facts hardly encourages me to proceed, but I'll
try. Would you mind showing me those bits of candle-grease you picked up
in the bedroom?"

Superintendent Galloway produced a metal match-box from his pocket,
emptied some pieces of candle-grease, a burnt wooden match and a broken
matchhead from it, and sat back eyeing the detective with a supercilious
smile. Colwyn, after examining them closely, brought from his own pocket
an envelope, and shook several more pieces of candle-grease on the
table.

"Look at these pieces of candle-grease side by side," he said. "Yours
were picked up alongside the bed; I found mine underneath the gas
burner."

Superintendent Galloway glanced at the pieces of candle-grease with the
same supercilious smile. "I see them," he said. "They are pieces of
candle-grease. What of them?"

"Do you not see that they are different kinds of candle-grease? The
pieces you picked up alongside the bed are tallow; mine, picked up from
underneath the gas-globe, are wax."

The Superintendent had not noticed the difference in the candle-grease,
but he thought it beneath his dignity to examine them again. "The
murderer may have had two candles," he said oracularly. "Anyway, what
does it matter? They're both candle-grease."

Colwyn swept his fragments back into his pocket with a quick impatient
gesture. "Both candle-grease, as you say," he returned sharply. "We do
not seem to be making much progress in our investigations, so let us
discontinue them. Good-night."

CHAPTER X

Colwyn went to bed, but not to sleep. Hour after hour he lay awake,
staring into the darkness, endeavouring to put together the facts he had
discovered during the afternoon's investigations at the inn. But they
resembled those irritating odd-shaped pieces of a puzzle which refuse to
fit into the remainder no matter which way they are turned. Try as he
would, he could not fit his clues into harmony with the police theory of
the murder.

On the other hand, he could not, nor did he attempt, to shut his eyes to
the strong case against Ronald, for he fully realised that there was
much to be explained in the young man's actions before any alternative
theory to that held by the police could be sustained. But so far he did
not see his way to an alternative theory. He sought vainly for a
foundation on which to build his clues and discoveries; for some
overlooked trifle which would help him to read aright the true order and
significance of the jumbled assortment of events in this strange case.

In the first place, was Ronald's explanation, about losing his way and
wandering to the inn by chance, the true one? The police accepted it
without question, but was it likely that a man who was in the habit of
taking long walks about the coast would lose his way easily? As against
that doubt, there were the statements of the innkeeper and the deaf
waiter that they had never seen Ronald before. If Ronald were not
guilty, why had he departed so hurriedly from the inn that morning? And
if he were not the murderer what was the explanation of the damning
evidence of the footprints leading to the pit in which the body of the
murdered man had been flung? If the discovery of the two kinds of
candle-grease in Mr. Glenthorpe's bedroom indicated that two persons
were in the room on the night of the murder, who were those two persons,
and what did they both go there for?

He reflected that his only tangible reason, so far, for not accepting
the police theory was based on the belief that two people had been in
the murdered man's room, and that belief rested on the discovery of a
spot of candle-grease which in itself was merely presumptive, but not
conclusive evidence. It was necessary to establish beyond doubt the
supposition that two people had been in the room before he could presume
to draw inferences from it. And, if he succeeded in establishing that
supposition, might not Ronald have been one of the two persons, and the
actual murderer? What was the significance of the broken incandescent
burner, the turned-on gas, and the faint mark under the window?

These questions revolved in Colwyn's head in a circle, always bringing
him back to his starting point that the solution of the case did not lie
on the surface, and that the police theory could not be made to fit in
with his own discoveries. The latter were in themselves internal
evidence that the whole truth had not yet been brought to light.

Gradually the line of the circle grew nebulous, and Colwyn was fast
falling asleep through sheer weariness, when a slight sharp sound, like
that made by turning a key in a lock, brought him back to wide-eyed
wakefulness. He sat up in bed, listening with strained ears, feeling for
the box of matches at his bedside. He found them, and endeavoured to
strike a light. But the matches were war matches, and one after another
broke off in his hand against the side of the box. He tried holding the
next close to the head, but the head flew off. With a muttered
malediction on British manufacturers, Colwyn struck several more in
rapid succession before he succeeded in lighting the candle at his
bedside. He got quietly out of bed, and, leaving the candle on the
table, opened his door noiselessly and looked out into the passage.

He had been put to sleep in a small bedroom in the deserted upstairs
wing where the murder had been committed. His room was opposite the
lumber room, which was three doors away from the room in which the body
of the dead man lay. When the question of accommodation for
Superintendent Galloway and himself had been discussed, the former had
chosen to have a bed made up in the bar parlour downstairs as more
comfortable and snug than any of the bedrooms upstairs, but Colwyn had
consented to sleep in the deserted wing. The innkeeper, who had lighted
him upstairs, had apologised for the humble room and scanty furniture,
but Colwyn had laughingly accepted the shortcomings of the room as a
point of no importance, and had stood at his door for some moments
watching a queer effect in shadows caused by the innkeeper's candle
throwing gigantic wavering outlines of his gaunt retreating figure on
the bare stone wall as he went down the side passage to his own bedroom.

Colwyn, looking out into the passage, could hear or see nothing to
account for the sound that had startled him into wakefulness. The candle
by his bedside gave a feeble glimmer which did not reach to the door,
and the passage was as dark and silent as the interior of a vault. The
stillness and blackness seemed to float into the bedroom like a cloud.
But he was certain he had not been mistaken. A door had been unlocked
somewhere in the darkness, and it had been unlocked by human hands. Who
had come to that deserted wing of the inn in the small hours, and on
what business? He decided to explore the passage and find out.

He left the door of his room partly open while he donned a few articles
of clothing, and pulled a pair of slippers on his feet. He glanced at
his watch, and noted with surprise that it wanted but a few minutes to
three o'clock. He extinguished his candle and, taking his electric
torch, crept silently into the passage.

He recalled the arrangements of the rooms as he had observed them the
previous afternoon. There were three more bedrooms adjoining his, all
empty. On the other side of the passage was the lumber room opposite,
next came the room in which Ronald slept, then the dead man's room, and
finally the sitting-room he had occupied. The door of the sitting-room
opened not very far from the head of the stairs.

Colwyn first examined the bedrooms on his side of the passage, stepping
as noiselessly as a cat, opening and shutting each door without a sound,
and scrutinising the interiors by the light of his torch. They were
empty and deserted, as he had seen them the previous afternoon. On
reaching the end of the passage he glanced over the head of the
staircase, but there was no light glimmering in the square well of
darkness and no sound in the lower part of the house to suggest that
anybody was stirring downstairs. He turned away, and made his way back
along the passage, trying the doors on the other side with equal
precaution as he went. The first three doors--the sitting-room, the
murdered man's bedroom, and Ronald's bedroom--were locked, as he had
seen them locked the previous afternoon by Superintendent Galloway, who
had carried the keys away with him until after the inquest on the body.

The lumber room at the other end of the passage had not been locked, and
the door stood ajar. Colwyn entered it, and by the glancing light of the
torch looked over the heavy furniture, mouldering linen, and stiffly
upended bedpoles and curtain rods which nearly filled the room. The
clock of a bygone generation stood on the mantel-piece, and the black
winding hole in its white face seemed to leer at him like an evil eye as
the light of the torch fell on it. But nobody had been in the room. The
dust which encrusted the furniture and the floor had not been disturbed
for months.

Colwyn returned, puzzled, to his own room. Could he have been mistaken?
Was it possible that the sound he had heard had been caused by the door
of the lumber room swinging to? No! the sound had been too clear and
distinct to admit the possibility of mistake, and it had been made by
the grating of a key in a lock, not by a swinging door. He stood in the
darkness by his open door, listening intently. Several minutes passed in
profound silence, and then there came a scraping, spluttering sound.
Somebody not far away had struck a match. Looking cautiously out into
the passage, he saw, to his utter amazement, a gleam of light appear
beneath the door in which the dead man lay. The next moment the gleam
moved up the line of the door sideways, cutting into the darkness
outside like a knife. The gleam became broader until the whole door was
revealed. Somebody inside was opening it. Even as he looked a hand stole
forth from the aperture through which the light streamed, and rested on
the jamb outside.

Colwyn was a man of strong nerves, but that sudden manifestation of
light and a human hand from a sealed death chamber momentarily
unbalanced his common sense, and caused it to swing like a pendulum
towards the supernatural. He would not have been surprised if the light
and the hand had been followed by the apparition of the murdered man on
the threshold, demanding vengeance on his murderer. The feeling passed
immediately, and with the return of reason the detective stepped back
into his room, closed his door quietly, and watched through a knife's
edge slit for the visitor to the death chamber to appear.

The door of the dead man's room opened gently, and the face of the
innkeeper's daughter peered forth into the darkness, her impassive face,
behind which everything was hid, showing like a beautiful waxen mask
against the light of the candle she held in her hand. Her clear gaze
rested on Colwyn's door, and it seemed to him for a moment as though
their glances met through the slit, then her eyes swept along the
passage from one end to the other. As if satisfied by the scrutiny that
she had nothing to fear, she stepped forth from the death chamber,
closed and locked the door behind her, withdrew the key, walked swiftly
along the passage to the head of the stairs, and descended them.

Colwyn opened his door and followed her. He paused outside to pick up
the boots which he had placed there to be cleaned, and carrying them in
his hand, ran quickly to the head of the stairs. Looking over the
landing, he saw the girl reach the bottom of the stairs and turn down
the passage towards the back door, still carrying the lighted candle in
her hand.

When Colwyn reached the bottom, the girl and the light had disappeared.
But a swift gust of wind in the passage revealed to him that she had
gone out by the back door, and closed it after her. He followed along
the passage till he felt the latch of the back door in his hand. The
door yielded to the lifting of the latch, and he found himself in the
open air.

It was a grey northern night, with a bitter wind driving the sea mist in
billows over the marshes, and a waning half moon shining fitfully
through the dingy clouds which scudded across a lead-coloured sky. By
the light of the moon he saw the figure of the girl, already some
distance from the house, swiftly making her way along the reedy canal
path which threaded the oozing marshes.

Colwyn was not a stranger to marshlands. He had waded knee-deep from dawn
to dusk through Irish bogs after wild geese; he had followed the
migratory seafowl of Finland, Russia and Serbia into their Scottish
breeding haunts, and he had once tried to keep pace with the sweep of
the Bore over the Solway Marshes, but he had never undertaken a task so
difficult as following this girl across a Norfolk marshland. The path
she trod so unhesitatingly was narrow, and slippery, with the canal on
one side and the marshes on the other. In keeping clear of the canal
Colwyn frequently found himself slipping into the marshes. His feet and
legs speedily became wet and caked with ooze, and once he nearly lost
one of his boots, which he had pulled on hurriedly outside the inn, and
left unlaced.

But the girl walked straight on with a swift and even gait, treading the
narrow path across the morass as securely as though she had been on the
high road. Colwyn soon realised that the path they were following was
taking them straight across the marshes to the sea. The surging of the
waves against the breakwater sounded increasingly loud on his ears, and
after a while he saw the breakwater itself rise momentarily out of the
darkness like a yellow wall, only to disappear again. But presently it
was visible once more, looming out in increasing clearness, with a
ghostly glimmering of the grey waters of the North Sea heaving
turbulently outside.

As they neared the breakwater the path became drier and firmer, and the
light of the moon, falling through a ragged rift in the scurrying
clouds, showed a line of sand banks and strips of tussock-land emerging
from the marshes as the marshes approached the sea.

The girl kept on with the same resolute pace, until she reached a spot
where the canal found its outlet to the sea. There she turned aside and
skirted the breakwater wall for a little distance, as if searching for
something. The next moment she was scaling the breakwater wall. Colwyn
was too far away to intercept her, or reach her if she slipped. He
stopped and watched her climb to the top of the wall, and stand there,
like a creature of the sea, with the spray leaping hungrily at her
slight figure. He saw her take something from the bosom of her dress and
cast it into the wild waste of seething waters in front of her. Having
done this she turned to descend the breakwater. Colwyn had barely time
to leave the path, and take refuge in the shadow of the wall, before she
reached the path again and set out to retrace her steps across the
lonely marshes.

CHAPTER XI

Colwyn waited on the marshes until the coming of the dawn revealed the
breakwater and the sea crashing against it. A brief scrutiny of the
white waste of waters, raging endlessly against the barrier, convinced
him of the futility of attempting to discover what the innkeeper's
daughter had thrown from the breakwater wall an hour before. The sea
would retain her secret.

The sea mist hung heavily over the marshes as Colwyn cautiously picked
his way back along the slippery canal path. Sooner than he expected, the
inn appeared from the grey mist like a sheeted ghost. Colwyn stood for a
few moments regarding the place attentively. There was something weird
and sinister about this lonely inn on the edge of the marshes. Strange
things must have happened there in the past, but the lawless secrets of
a bygone generation of smugglers had been safely kept by the old inn.
The cold morning light imparted the semblance of a leer to the circular
windows high up in the white wall, as though they defied the world to
discover the secret of the death of Roger Glenthorpe.

There was no sign of life about the inn as Colwyn approached it. The
back door yielded to his pull on the latch, and he gained his room
unobserved; apparently all the inmates were still wrapped in slumber.
Colwyn spent half an hour or so in making some sort of a toilet. He had
brought a suit-case with him in the car, so he changed his wet clothes,
shaved himself in cold water, washed, and brushed his hair. He looked
at his watch, and found that it was after six o'clock. He wondered if
the girl Peggy was sleeping after her night's adventure.

A swishing noise, somewhere in the lower regions, broke the profound
stillness of the house. Somebody was washing the floor, somewhere.
Colwyn opened his door and went downstairs. Ann, the stout servant, was
washing the passage. She was on her hands and knees, with her back
towards the staircase, swabbing vigorously, and did not see the
detective descending the stairs.

"Good morning, Ann," said Colwyn, pleasantly.

She turned her head quickly, with a start, and Colwyn could have sworn
that the quick glance she gave him was one of fear. But she merely said,
"Good morning, sir," and went on with her work, while the detective
stood looking at her. She finished the passage in a few minutes and got
awkwardly to her feet, wiping her red hands on her coarse apron.

"You and I are the only early risers in the house, it seems, Ann," said
Colwyn, still regarding her attentively.

"If you please, sir, Charles is up, and gone out to the canal to see if
there are any fish for breakfast on the master's night lines."

"Fresh fish for breakfast! Well, that's a very good thing," replied the
detective, reflecting it was just as well that he had got in before
Charles went out. "What time does Mr. Benson come down?"

"About half-past seven, sir, as a general rule, but sometimes he has his
breakfast in bed."

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