The Shrieking Pit

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

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"That's not a bad idea at times, Ann. But I see you are impatient to get
on with your work. Would you mind if I went into the kitchen and talked
to you while you are preparing breakfast?"

Again there was a gleam of fear in the woman's eyes as she looked
quickly at the detective, but her voice was self-possessed as she
replied:

"Very well, sir," and turned down the passage which led to the kitchen.

"What time was it when you turned off the gas the night before last?"
asked Colwyn, when the kitchen was reached. "You told us yesterday that
it was about half-past ten, but you did not seem very sure of the exact
time. Can you not fix it accurately? Try and think."

The look the woman gave Colwyn this time was undoubtedly one of relief.

"Well, sir," she said, "I usually turn off the gas at ten o'clock, but,
to tell you the truth, I was a little bit late that night."

"A little bit late, eh? That means you forgot all about it."

"I did forget about it, and that's the truth. The master told me not to
turn off the meter until the gentlemen in the parlour upstairs had gone
to bed. Charles told me when he came down from the upstairs parlour with
the last of the dinner things that the gentlemen were still sitting in
front of the fire talking, but some time after Charles had come down and
gone to bed I heard them moving about upstairs, as though they were
going to their rooms."

"What time was that?" asked the detective.

"Just half-past ten. I happened to glance at the kitchen clock at the
time. Charles, who had been told that he wouldn't be wanted upstairs
again, had gone to bed quite half an hour before, but I didn't go until
I had folded some clothes which I had airing in front of the kitchen
fire. When I did get to bed, and was just falling off to sleep, I
suddenly remembered that I had forgotten to turn off the gas at the
meter. I got out of bed again, lit my candle, and went up the passage to
the meter, which is just under the foot of the stairs, turned off the
gas, and went back to bed."

"Did you notice the time then?"

"The kitchen clock was just chiming eleven as I got back to my bed."

"You are sure it was not twelve?"

"Quite sure, sir."

"Did you hear any sound upstairs?"

"No, sir. It was as quiet as the dead."

"Was it raining at that time?"

"It started to rain heavens hard just as I got back to bed, but before
that the wind was moaning round the house, as it do moan in these parts,
and I knew we was in for a storm. I was glad enough to get back to my
warm bed."

"You might have seen something, if you had been a little later. The
staircase is the only way the body could have been brought down from
_there_." The detective pointed to the room above where the dead man
lay.

The woman trembled violently.

"It's God's mercy I didn't see something," she said, and her voice fell
to a husky whisper. "I should 'a' died wi' fright if I had seen _it_
being brought downstairs. All day long I've been thanking God I didn't
see anything."

"Do nobody else but you and Charles sleep downstairs?"

"Nobody, sir. I sleep in a small room off the kitchen, but Charles
sleeps in one of the rooms in the passage which leads off the kitchen,
the first room, not far from my own. But that'd been no help to me if
I'd seen anything. I might have screamed the house down before Charles
would have heard me, he being stone deaf."

"Quite true, Ann. And now is that all you have to tell me about the
gas?"

The woman seemed to have some difficulty in replying, but finally she
stammered out in an embarrassed voice, plucking at her apron the while:

"Yes, sir."

"Look at me, Ann, and tell me the truth. Come now, it will be better for
everybody."

The countrywoman looked at the detective with whitening face, and there
was something in his penetrating gaze that kept her frightened eyes
fixed on his.

"Please, sir----"

"Yes, Ann, go on," prompted the detective encouragingly.

But the woman didn't go on; there crept into her face instead an
obstinate look, her mouth closed tightly, and her hands ceased
twitching.

"I've told you everything, sir," she said quietly.

"You've not told me you found the meter turned on when you got up next
morning," replied the detective sternly.

The woman's fat face turned haggard with anxiety, and then she began to
cry softly with her apron to her eyes.

"Why did you not tell us this, Ann?"

"If you please, sir, I thought that the master mightn't like it if he
knew. He's very particular about having the gas turned off at night, and
he might have thought I had forgotten it."

Colwyn gave her another searching look.

"Even if that were true, Ann, you have no right to keep back anything
that may tend to shield the guilty, or injure the innocent."

"I didn't think it mattered, sir."

"You still say that you heard nothing after you went to bed?"

"No, sir. I fell asleep as soon as I got into bed."

"So you said before, but you did not tell us the whole truth yesterday,
you know, and I do not know whether to believe you now."

"Hush, sir, there's somebody coming down the passage."

Colwyn strolled into the passage and encountered Superintendent Galloway
coming towards the kitchen. He stared at the detective and exclaimed:

"Hello, you're up early."

"Yes; I found it difficult to sleep, so I came downstairs."

"I hope you've not been making love to Ann," said Galloway, who had his
own sense of humour. "I'm looking for this infernal waiter, Charles. He
is never about when he's wanted. Charles! Charles!"

Superintendent Galloway's shouts brought Ann hurrying from the kitchen,
and she explained to him, as she had explained to Colwyn, that Charles
had gone on to the marshes to look for fish.

"Send him to my room as soon as he comes in; I've other fish for him to
fry," grumbled the superintendent. "A queer household this," he said to
Colwyn, as they walked along the passage. "Ah, here is Charles, fish and
all."

The fat waiter was hurrying in with a string of fish in his hand, and he
came towards them in response to Superintendent Galloway's commanding
gesture. The superintendent told him to go out and intercept Constable
Queensmead before he went out with his search party, and bring him to
the inn. Charles nodded an indication that he understood the
instruction, and turned away to execute it.

"I want Queensmead to get a dozen of the village blockheads together for
a jury," he said to Colwyn. "The coroner sent me word before we left
Durrington yesterday that he'd be over this morning, but he did not say
what time, and I forgot to ask him. He's the man to kick up a devil of a
shindy if he came and found we were not ready for him."

Queensmead speedily appeared in response to the summons, listened
quietly to Superintendent Galloway's laconic command to catch a jury and
catch them quick, and went back to the village to secure twelve good men
and true.

Colwyn and Galloway meanwhile breakfasted together in the bar parlour,
on some of the fish which Charles had brought in. As nothing followed
the fish Superintendent Galloway, who was an excellent trencherman, rang
the bell and ordered the waiter to bring some eggs and bacon. The waiter
hesitated a moment, and then said that he believed they were out of
bacon. There were some eggs, if they would do.

"Bring me a couple, boiled, as quick as you like," said the
superintendent. "This is a queer kind of inn," he grumbled to Colwyn.
"They don't give you enough to eat."

"I think they're a little short themselves," replied Colwyn.

"By Jove, I believe you're right!" said the superintendent, staring hard
at the edibles on the table before him. "There's not much here--a piece
of butter no bigger than a walnut, a spoonful of jam, and tea as weak
as water. Come to think of it, they gave us nothing but some of
Glenthorpe's left over game for dinner last night. You're right, they
are _hard up_."

Superintendent Galloway looked at Colwyn with as much animation on his
heavy features as though he had lighted on some new and important
discovery. Colwyn, who had finished his breakfast and was not
particularly interested in the conversation, strolled out with the
intention of smoking a cigar outside the front door. In the passage he
encountered Ann, bearing a tray with two cups and saucers, a pot of tea
and some bread and butter which she proceeded to carry upstairs. Colwyn
wondered for whom the breakfast was intended. There were three people
upstairs--the father, his daughter, and the poor mad woman, and the
breakfast was laid for two. The appearance of the innkeeper descending
the stairs, answered the question. Colwyn accosted him as he came down.

"You're a late riser, Benson."

"Yes, sir, it's a bit difficult to handle Mother in the morning: the
only way to keep her quiet is for me to stay with her until Peggy is
ready to go to her and give her her breakfast. Mother is quiet enough
with Peggy and me, but nobody else can do anything with her, and
sometimes nobody can do anything with her except my daughter. She spends
a lot of time with her, sir."

The innkeeper looked more like a bird than ever as he proffered this
explanation, standing at the foot of the stairs dressed as he had been
the previous night, with his bright bird's eyes peering from beneath his
shock of iron-grey hair at the man in front of him. Colwyn noticed that
his hair had been recently wet, and plastered straight down so that it
hung like a ridge over his forehead--just as it had been the previous
night. Colwyn wondered why the man wore his hair like that. Did he
always affect that eccentric style of hairdressing, or had he adopted it
to alter his personal appearance--to disguise himself, or to conceal
something?

"It's no life for a young girl," said the detective, in answer to the
innkeeper's last remark.

"I know that, sir. But what am I to do? I cannot afford to keep a nurse.
Peggy never complains. She's used to it. But if you'll excuse me, sir. I
must go and get the room ready for the inquest."

"What room is it going to be held in?"

"Superintendent Galloway told me to put a table and some chairs into the
last empty room off the passage leading into the kitchen. It's the
biggest room in the house, and there are plenty of chairs in the lumber
room upstairs."

"It should do excellently for the purpose, I should think," said Colwyn.

A few moments later he saw the innkeeper and the waiter carrying chairs
from the lumber room downstairs into the empty room, where Ann dusted
them. Then they carried in a small table from another room.
Superintendent Galloway, with inky fingers and a red face, and a sheaf
of foolscap papers in his hand, came bustling out of the bar parlour to
superintend the arrangements. When the chairs had been placed to his
liking he ordered the innkeeper to bring him a glass of ale. While he
was drinking it Constable Queensmead entered the front door with a file
of shambling, rough-looking villagers trailing behind him, and announced
to his superior officer that the men were intended to form a jury.
Superintendent Galloway seemed quite satisfied with their appearance,
and remarked to Colwyn that he didn't care how soon the coroner
arrived--now he had the jury and witnesses ready for him.

"How many witnesses do you propose to call?" said Colwyn.

"Five: Queensmead, Benson, the waiter, and the two men who found the
footprints leading to the pit and who recovered the body and brought it
here. That's enough for a committal. The coroner will no doubt bring a
doctor from Heathfield to certify the cause of death. I've got all the
statements ready. I took Benson's and the waiter's yesterday. The
waiter's evidence is the principal thing, of course. Do you remember
suggesting to me last night the possibility of this murder having been
committed by one of Mr. Glenthorpe's workmen with a grudge against him?
Well, it's a very strange thing, but Queensmead was telling me this
morning that one of Mr. Glenthorpe's workmen had a grudge against him.
He's a chap named Hyson, the local ne'er-do-well, who was almost
starving when Mr. Glenthorpe came to the district. Glenthorpe was warned
against employing him, but the fellow got round him with a piteous tale,
and he put him on. He proved to be just as ungrateful as the average
British workman, and caused the old gentleman a lot of trouble. He seems
to have been a bit of a sea lawyer, and tried to disaffect the other
workmen by talking to them about socialism, and the rights of labour,
and that sort of rubbish. When I heard this I had the chap brought to
the inn and cross-questioned him a bit, but I am certain that he had
nothing to do with the murder. He's a weak, spineless sort of chap, full
of argument and fond of beer--that's his character in the village--and
the last man in the world to commit a murder like this. I flatter
myself," added Superintendent Galloway in a tone of mingled
self-complacency and pride, "that I know a murderer when I see one."

"Have you made any inquiries about umbrellas?" asked Colwyn.

"Yes. Apparently Ronald did not bring an umbrella with him, though it's
cost me some trouble to establish that fact. It is astonishing how
unobservant people are about such things as umbrellas, sticks, and
handbags. Most people remember faces and clothes with some accuracy, but
cannot recall whether a person carried an umbrella or walking-stick.
Charles is not sure whether Ronald carried an umbrella, Benson thinks he
did not, and Ann is sure he didn't. The balance of evidence being on the
negative side, I assume that Ronald did not bring an umbrella to the
inn, because it was more likely to have been noticed if he had. I next
inquired about the umbrellas in the house. At first I was told there
were only two--a cumbrous, Robinson Crusoe sort of affair, kept in the
kitchen and used by the servant, and a smaller one, belonging to
Benson's daughter. I have examined both. The covering of the girl's
umbrella is complete. Ann's is rent in several places, but the covering
is blue, whereas the piece of umbrella covering we found adhering to Mr.
Glenthorpe's window is black. While I was questioning Ann she suddenly
remembered that there was another umbrella in that lumber-room upstairs.
We went upstairs to look for it, but we couldn't find it, though Ann
says she saw it there a day or two before the murder. I think we may
assume that Ronald took it."

"But Ronald was a stranger to the place. How would he know the umbrella
was in the lumber-room?" said Colwyn, who had followed Galloway's
narrative with close attention.

"The door of the lumber-room stands ajar. Ronald probably looked in from
curiosity, and saw the umbrella."

The easy assurance with which Superintendent Galloway dismissed or got
over difficulties which interfered with his own theory did not commend
itself to Colwyn, but he did not pursue the point further.

"Is the umbrella still missing?" he asked.

"Yes. It seems that even a murderer cannot be trusted to return an
umbrella." Superintendent Galloway laughed shortly at his grim joke and
walked away to supervise the preparations for the inquest.

The coroner presently arrived from Heathfield in a small runabout
motor-car which he drove himself, with a tall man sitting beside him,
and a short pursy young man in the back seat nursing a portable
typewriter and an attache case on his knees. Toiling in the rear, some
distance behind the car, was a figure on a bicycle, which subsequently
turned out to be the reporter of the Heathfield local paper, who had
come over with instructions from one of the London agencies to send a
twenty line report of the inquest for the London press. In peace times
"specials" would probably have been despatched from the metropolis to
"do a display story," and interview some of the persons concerned, but
the war had discounted by seventy-five per cent the value of murders as
newspaper "copy."

The coroner, a short, stout, commonplace little man, jumped out of the
car as soon as it stopped, and bustled into the inn with an air of fussy
official importance, leaving his companions to follow.

"Good day, Galloway," he exclaimed, as that officer came forward to
greet him. "I hope you've got everything ready."

"Everything's ready, Mr. Edgehill. Do you intend to commence before
lunch?"

"Of course I do. Are you aware that it is war-time? How many witnesses
have you?"

"Five, sir. Their statements have all been taken."

"Then I shall go straight through--it seems a simple case--merely a
matter of form, from what I have heard of it. I have another inquest at
Downside at four o'clock. Where's the body? Upstairs? Doctor"--this to
the tall thin man who had sat beside him in the run-about--"will you go
upstairs with Queensmead and make your examination? Where's the jury?
Pendy"--this to the young man with the typewriter and attache case--"get
everything ready and swear in the jury. Galloway will show you the room.
What's that? Oh, that's quite all right"--this in reply to some murmured
apology on the part of Superintendent Galloway for the mental incapacity
of the jury--"we ought to be glad to get juries at all--in war-time."

Colwyn had feared that the result of the inquest was a foregone
conclusion the moment he saw the coroner alighting from his motor-car
outside the inn. Ten minutes later, when the little man had commenced
his investigations, he realised that the proceedings were merely a
formal compliance with the law, and in no sense of the word an inquiry.

Mr. Edgehill, the coroner, was one of those people who seized upon the
war as a pretext for the exercise of their natural proclivity to
interfere in other people's affairs. He took the opportunity that every
inquest gave him to lecture the British public on their duties and
responsibilities in war-time. The body on which he was sitting formed
his text, the jury was his congregation, and the newspaper reporters the
vehicles by which his admonitions were conveyed to the nation. Mr.
Edgehill saw a shirker in every suicide, national improvidence in a
corpse with empty pockets, and had even been able to discover a
declining war _morale_ in death by misadventure. He thanked God for air
raids and food queues because they brought the war home to civilians,
and he was never tired of asserting that he lived on half the voluntary
rations scale, did harder work, felt ten years younger, and a hundred
times more virtuous, in consequence.

If he did not actually insert the last clause his look implied a
superior virtue to his fellow creatures, and was meekly accepted as
such. He never held an inquest without introducing some remarks upon
uninterned aliens, the military age, Ireland and conscription, soldiers'
wives and drinking, the prevalence of bigamy, and other popular war-time
topics. In short, Mr. Edgehill, like many other people, had used the war
to emerge from a chrysalis existence as a local bore into a butterfly
career as a public nuisance. In that capacity he was still good "copy"
in some of the London newspapers, and was even occasionally referred to
in leading articles as a fine example of the sturdy country spirit which
Londoners would do well to emulate.

Before commencing his inquiry into the death of Mr. Glenthorpe, the
coroner indignantly expressed his surprise that a small hamlet like
Flegne could produce so many able-bodied men to serve on a jury in
war-time. But after ascertaining that all the members of the jury were
over military age, with the exception of one man who was afflicted with
heart disease, he suffered the inquest to proceed.

The evidence of the innkeeper and the waiter was a repetition of the
story they had told to the chief constable on the preceding day.
Constable Queensmead, in his composed way, gave an account of his
preliminary investigations into the crime, and the finding of the body.

The only additional evidence brought forward was given by two of the men
who had been in the late Mr. Glenthorpe's employ. These men, Herward and
Duney, had found the track of the footprints in the clay near the pit on
going to work the previous morning. After the discovery that Mr.
Glenthorpe was missing from the inn, Herward had been let down into the
pit by a rope, and had brought up the body. Both these men told their
story with a wealth of unlettered detail, and Duney, who was one of the
aboriginals of the district, added his personal opinion that t'oud
ma'aster mun 'a' been very dead afore the chap got him in the pit, else
he would 'a' dinged one of the chap's eyes in, t'oud ma'aster not bein'
a man to be taken anywhere against his will. However, the chap that
carried him must 'a' been powerful strong, because Herward told him his
own arms were begunnin' ter ache good tidily just a-howdin' him up to
the rope when they wor being a-hawled out the pit.

The coroner, in his summing up, dwelt upon the strong circumstantial
evidence against Ronald, and the folly of the deceased in withdrawing a
large sum of money from the bank for the purpose of carrying out
scientific research in war-time. "Had he invested that money in war
bonds he would have probably been alive to-day," said Mr. Edgehill
gravely. The jury had no hesitation in returning a verdict of wilful
murder against James Ronald.

The coroner, the doctor, the clerk carrying the typewriter and the
attache case, and Superintendent Galloway departed in the runabout
motor-car shortly afterwards. Before evening a mortuary van, with two
men, appeared from Heathfield and removed the body of the murdered man.

CHAPTER XII

If the inmates of the inn felt any surprise at Colwyn's remaining after
the inquest, they did not betray it. That evening Ann nervously
intercepted him to ask if he would have a partridge for his dinner, and
Colwyn, remembering the shortness of the inn larder, replied that a
partridge would do very well. Later on Charles served it in the bar
parlour, and waited with his black eyes fixed on Colwyn's lips,
sometimes anticipating his orders before they were uttered. He brought a
bottle of claret from the inn cellar, assuring Colwyn in his soft
whisper that he would find the wine excellent, and Colwyn, after
sampling it, found no reason for disagreeing with the waiter's judgment.

At the conclusion of the meal Colwyn sent for the innkeeper, and asked
him a number of questions about the district and its inhabitants. The
innkeeper intimated that Flegne was a poor place at the best of times,
but the war had made it worse, and the poorer folk--the villagers who
lived in the beach-stone cottages--were sometimes hard-pressed to keep
body and soul together. They did what they could, eking out their scanty
earnings by eel-fishing on the marshes, and occasionally snaring a few
wild fowl. Mr. Glenthorpe's researches in the district had been a
godsend because of the employment he had given, which had brought a
little ready money into the place.

It was obvious to Colwyn's alert intelligence that the innkeeper did not
care to talk about his dead guest.

There was no visible reluctance--indeed, it would have been hard to
trace the sign of any particular emotion on his queer, bird-like
face--but his replies were slow in coming when questioned about Mr.
Glenthorpe, and he made several attempts to turn the conversation in
another direction. When he had finished a glass of wine Colwyn offered
him, he got up from the table with the remark that it was time for him
to return to the bar.

"I will go with you," said Colwyn. "It will help to pass away an hour."

There were about a dozen men in the bar--agricultural labourers and
fishermen--clustered in groups of twos and threes in front of the
counter, or sitting on stools by the wall, drinking ale by the light of
a smoky oil lamp which hung from the rafters. The fat deaf waiter was in
the earthy recess behind the counter, drawing ale into stone mugs.

A loud voice which had been holding forth ceased suddenly as Colwyn
entered. The inmates of the bar regarded him questioningly, and some
resentfully, as though they considered his presence an intrusion. But
Colwyn was accustomed to making himself at home in all sorts of company.
He walked across the bar, called for some whisky, and, while it was
being served, addressed a friendly remark to the nearest group to him.
One of the men, a white-bearded, keen-eyed Norfolk man, answered his
question civilly enough. He had asked about wild fowl shooting in the
neighbourhood, and the old man had been a water bailiff on the Broads in
his younger days. The question of sport will draw most men together. One
after another of the villagers joined in the conversation, and were soon
as much at home with Colwyn as though they had known him from boyhood.
Some of them were going eel-fishing that night, and Colwyn violated the
provisions of the "no treating" order to give them a glass of whisky to
keep out the cold of the marshes. The rest of the tap room he regaled
with ale.

From these Norfolk fishermen Colwyn learnt many of the secrets of the
wild and many cunning methods of capturing its creatures, but the real
object of his visit to the bar--to discover whether any of the
frequenters of the _Golden Anchor_ had ever seen Ronald in the district
before the evening of the murder--remained unsatisfied. He was a
stranger to "theer" parts, the men said, in response to questions on the
subject.

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