The Ashiel mystery

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Gimblet assured him that he could like nothing better than what he
already had.

"You have had Macross up here, haven't you?" he asked. "It is really
disappointing to find the whole thing over before I arrive. I am afraid
there is nothing left for me to do."

Mark looked at him quickly. Was it possible he accepted Macross's verdict
without inquiring further himself?

"We are hoping you will undo what has been done," he said. "I look to you
to get my cousin out of prison. Surely there must be some other
explanation than that he did it. I simply won't believe it."

"If there is any other explanation," said Gimblet, "I will try and
find it; but the affair looks bad against Sir David Southern from what
I can hear."

"Why should he have shot through the window?" said Ashiel. "They were
both in the same house. Why should my cousin go into the garden, when
he had nothing to do but to open the library door and shoot, if he
wanted to?"

"Oh," said Gimblet, "ordinary caution would suggest the garden. He did
not know perhaps, whether his uncle would be alone; and as a matter of
fact, he was not, was he?"

"No, Miss Byrne was with him. By Jove," said Mark, bending forward to
light a cigarette, "I shall never forget the fright it gave me when I
saw her face. She looked as if--oh, she looked perfectly ghastly! I was
in the billiard-room when she came in, as white as a sheet, and stood
there without speaking for a minute, while I imagined every sort of
catastrophe except the real one. And all the time I kept thinking it
would turn out to be nothing really, as likely as not; women will look
hideously frightened and upset if they cut their finger, or see a rat,
or think they hear burglars. One never knows. And then at last she got
out a few words, 'Lord Ashiel has been shot,' or something of the sort,
and fainted."

"What did you do?" asked Gimblet.

"Well, I had to see to her, you know. I couldn't very well leave her in
that state, could I? I hung on to the bell for all I was worth, and the
butler and footmen came running. I told them to look after the young lady
and to call her maid, and then I ran off to the library, followed by old
Blanston, the butler. You know what we found there. My poor old uncle,
dead as a door nail; a hole in the window where the bullet came in, and
the floor around him all covered with blood. Ugh!" Mark shuddered, "it
was horrid. We only stayed to make sure he was dead, and then we left him
as we had found him and rushed back to rouse the rest of the household,
and to start a chase after the murderer. Of course the first person I
looked for was David Southern, but he wasn't to be found, so I and three
menservants ran out at once with sticks and lanterns, and hunted all over
the grounds without seeing or hearing anything or anyone. The hall boy
had been sent down to fetch up the stablemen and chauffeur, and to rout
out some of the gardeners and anyone else he could find, so that we were
a decently large party, and I don't think there was an inch of ground we
didn't go over, of all that lies within the policies. The murderer,
however, had plenty of time to get right away, and as it was hopeless to
scour the whole country side in that darkness--for it was as black as
your hat--I decided, after an hour of groping about in the shrubberies,
that we must leave off and wait for daylight."

"What time was it when you abandoned the hunt?" asked Gimblet.

"It was past midnight. I didn't see that any good could be done by
sitting up all night. On the contrary, I thought it important that we
should get some sleep while we could, so as to be fresher for the chase
when daylight came. At this time of the year it gets light fairly early,
so I sent every one to bed, except two of the ghillies, whom I told to
row across the loch to Crianan and fetch the doctor and police, which I
suppose I ought to have thought of before. Then I went to bed myself."

"And when did Sir David Southern turn up?" asked Gimblet.

"Oh, he appeared soon after we started to beat the policies. I hadn't
time then to ask him where he'd been, and he was as keen on catching
the murderer as anyone. Of course it never occurred to me to
cross-question him."

"Naturally. Please go on with your narrative."

"Well, we slept, to speak for myself, for three or four hours, and then
James and Andrew came back with the people I had sent for. And now, Mr.
Gimblet, I come to a strange thing, a thing I've been careful not to
mention to anyone but you, though I'm afraid it's bound to come out at
the trial. When Blanston and I went out of the library, we locked the
door behind us, but when I opened it again, to let in the doctor and the
police, my uncle's body had been moved."

"Moved? How?" Gimblet repeated after him.

"Oh, not far, but it had been touched by some one, I am ready to swear,
though I said nothing about it at the time. When we first found him, he
was lying forward on the table with one arm under his head and the other
hanging beside him. When I went in for the second time he was sitting
sideways in his chair with his head and arm in quite a different place.
Instead of being in the middle, on the blotting-pad, they were further to
the right, on the bare polished wood."

Gimblet looked at him keenly.

"You are perfectly certain of this?" he said.

"Absolutely. Besides, you can ask Miss Byrne and Blanston. They both saw
him as he was at first. And the police and Dr. Duncan can tell you what
his position was when they went into the room. I said nothing about it
to any of them, because I thought at once that it must be David who had
been there."

"Why did you think that?"

"Because he knew where the key was. I took it out of my pocket when we
were alone in the smoking-room before going up to bed, and asked him what
I should do with it.

"'Oh, put it in a drawer,' he said, pointing to the writing-table, and I
put it there, as he suggested. Of course I see now that some one else may
have found the key in that drawer, but at first it did look as if David
must, for some reason, have taken it, and been in the library, after I'd
gone to bed."

"It seems very unlikely that anyone else would have hit on the place
where you had put it," said Gimblet reflectively. "And if they had
done so, would they have recognized the key? Is the library key
peculiar in any way?"

"It is rather an uncommon pattern," said Mark. "It is very old and
strong. I think anyone who knew the key would have recognized it
all right."

"It is hardly likely that anyone would have found it if they had had to
search all through the house for it in the middle of the night,"
commented Gimblet. "Is there no other way of getting into the library?"

"No, there is only one door."

"How about the window? It was broken; could not anyone have put in a
hand, or raised the sash?"

"I don't think anyone could have got in. It isn't a sash window. There
are stone mullions and small leaded casements in the old part of the
castle where the library is, and I doubt if anyone larger than a child
could squeeze through; in fact, a child couldn't; there are iron bars
down the middle, which make it too narrow."

"H'm," murmured Gimblet. "I should like to have a look at them. And what
was the doctor's report?"

"He said that the injuries to the heart were such that death must have
been instantaneous, or practically so."

"Did anything else come out?"

"Nothing, except the evidence against poor old David, I'm sorry to say."

"You haven't told me that yet," said Gimblet. "Go on from when the police
arrived on the scene."

"As soon as it was daylight we started off again on our search. But right
at the beginning of it, they came upon the footsteps."

"Ah, where were they?"

"The flower-bed outside the library window showed them plainly; the
ground beyond that was mossy, and there were no other marks. We divided
into two parties, one going west down the side of the loch, and the other
north and east over the hills. Till ten o'clock or later we beat the
country, searching behind every rock, and going through the woods and
bracken in a close line. But we saw no sign of a stranger, and came back
at last, dead beat, for food and a rest. When we got back we found that
the policeman left in charge had been nosing about, and whiling away his
time by collecting the boots of every one in the house and fitting them
to the footprints on the flower-bed. As bad luck would have it, David's
shooting-boots exactly fitted the marks."

"His shooting-boots?" said Gimblet. "He wouldn't be wearing
shooting-boots after dinner."

"That's what he said himself, and there seems no imaginable reason why he
should have worn them, unless--" Mark hesitated for a moment, and then
went on in a tone perhaps rather too positive to carry complete
conviction to a critical ear. "Of course not. He can't have put them on
after dinner. The idea is ludicrous. He must have made those footmarks
earlier in the day."

"Is that what he himself says?" asked the detective. He had finished
eating, and was leaning back in his chair with that air of far-off
contemplation which those best acquainted with him knew was
habitually his expression when his attention and interest were more
than usually roused.

"No," admitted Mark regretfully. "He doesn't. He sticks to it that he'd
never been near the flower-bed, with boots, or without them; it's my
belief his memory has been affected by the shock of all this. And he
would insist on talking to the police, though they warned him that
what he said might be used against him. I did all I could to stop him,
but it was no good. It really looked as if he was doing his best to
incriminate himself."

"How was that? What else did he say?"

"You see," said Mark, "when the Crianan man had got hold of the boots
that matched the footprints, he was no end excited by his success.
Pleased to death with himself, he was. And he was as keen as mustard on
following up his rotten clue. The next thing he did was to want a look at
David's guns. Of course we didn't make any objection to that, though if
I'd known--well, it's no earthly thinking of that now. So off we all
marched in procession to the gun-room, and it didn't take long to see
that the only one of the whole lot there that hadn't been cleaned since
it was last fired was the Mannlicher David had shot his stag with the day
before. The silly ass of a constable took it up and squinted through it
as solemn as a judge, and then he just handed it to my cousin, and 'What
have you to say to this, Sir David?' says he. Infernal cheek! 'I shot it
off yesterday, and haven't had time to clean it since,' said David, and
I, for one, could have sworn he was speaking the truth. Why not, indeed?
There was nothing improbable about it. But the dickens of the thing was
that while we were all out of the house, and he had the place to himself,
the policeman had routed out poor Miss Byrne and badgered her for an
account of all that had happened the evening before; and she, without a
thought of doing harm to any of us--I'm convinced she's as sorry for it
now as I am myself--had mentioned incidentally that David had told her,
when she saw him half an hour before the murder, that he'd just been
cleaning his rifle. She'd told me so, too, as far as that goes, when she
passed through the billiard-room on her way to the library. I happened to
ask her if she knew what he was up to."

"Decidedly awkward for Sir David," said Gimblet meditatively, "but
after all, some one else might have fired off the rifle after he had
cleaned it."

Mark shook his head gloomily.

"There are difficulties about that," he said. "It happens that David is
very fussy about his guns, always cleans them himself, you know, and
won't let another soul touch 'em. And though he keeps them in the gunroom
like the rest of us, he's got his own particular glass-fronted cupboard
which he keeps the key of himself. My uncle and I share one between us,
and generally leave the key in the lock, so that the keeper can get at
the guns, which we never bother to clean ourselves. Not so David. Ever
since we were boys he's had his own private cupboard, and no one but
himself has ever been allowed to open it. We always spent our holidays
here, and my uncle let us behave as if we were at our own house. David
took out the key for the sergeant to use, and when he was asked if anyone
else could have got at the rifle, he replied that it was impossible, as
the key had been in his pocket the whole time, except for an hour or two
while he was asleep, when it had lain on the table by his bedside."

"Did he deny having told Miss Byrne he had cleaned the rifle?"
asked Gimblet.

"Yes; he said he hadn't told her so. It was all very unpleasant, and the
police sergeant was as suspicious as you like, by this time. 'What were
you doing when the alarm was given?' he asked David. 'I was out in the
grounds,' said David, and that was rather a facer for the rest of us, I
must confess. He went on to say that he had fancied he saw some one
hanging about at the edge of the lawn--which is the opposite side of the
house from the library--and gone out to make sure, but he had found no
one, though he hunted about for nearly an hour, till he saw lights
approaching and fell in with our party of searchers. He said that it was
then he first heard what had happened."

Gimblet nodded his head thoughtfully.

"Miss Byrne said she saw him start off to look for some one," he
remarked.

"Yes," said Mark eagerly, "there's no doubt he saw a man lurking in the
darkness. And it was dark too," he added, "never saw such a black night
in my life; I must say it beats me how he could have seen anyone. But his
eyes were always rather more useful than mine," he concluded hastily.

"The police, however, seem to have thought it improbable," said Gimblet,
"since they arrested your cousin for the murder."

"Stupid brutes!" said Mark viciously. "No, they would have it it was
impossible he should have seen anyone. And what clinched it was the
unlucky fact that David and my uncle had had a violent row the day
before. My uncle shot David's dog; I must say I think it was uncalled
for, and poor David was absurdly fond of the beast. He felt very savage
about it, and all the ghillies heard what he said to Uncle Douglas."

"What did he say?"

"Oh, a lot of rot. He lost his temper. The idiotic thing he said was,
that he'd a good mind to shoot _him_ and see how he liked it. Pure
temper, you know. I don't believe David would hurt a hair of his head."

"Well, it was decidedly an indiscreet remark."

"It was imbecile. And of course the police heard all about it from the
servants and keepers, and it fitted in only too well with all the rest
about the footmarks and his absence from the house at the time, and the
rifle and everything. By the by, the bullet was a soft-nosed one which
fitted David's rifle; but for that matter it fitted mine--which is a .355
Mannlicher like his--or a dozen others on the loch side. It's a very
common weapon on a Scotch forest. But taking one thing with another there
was a good deal of evidence against him, so they made up their minds he
had done it; and Macross, when he arrived from Glasgow with his
myrmidons, agreed with the local idiots, and took him off. I'm certain
there must be a mistake somewhere, but so far it seems jolly hard to hit
on it. I hope you'll put your finger on the spot."

"I hope so," said Gimblet, but his voice was full of doubt. "It's hard to
see how anyone else could have used his rifle after he cleaned it, since
he admits that he locked it up and kept the key on him. Yes," he murmured
to himself, "the rifle speaks very eloquently. What other interpretation
can be put on these facts? I'm sure you must see that yourself," he went
on, glancing up at Mark, who was feeling in his pocket for another
cigarette. "Sir David told Miss Byrne he had cleaned his rifle; he told
the police he then locked it up and that the key had been in his
possession ever since. But the rifle was found to have been fired again
since he had cleaned it. His only explanation was to contradict what he
had previously said to Miss Byrne. Do those facts appear to you to leave
any possible loophole of doubt as to his guilt?"

Mark struck a match and lighted his cigarette before he answered. When
at length he did so his reluctance was very plain, and his voice full
of regret.

"Poor old chap," he said. "I'm afraid he must have done it in some fit of
madness. As you say, there is no other imaginable alternative."

Gimblet nodded philosophically.

"Is there anything else?" he asked.

Mark hesitated.

"There's a letter which arrived for Uncle Douglas this morning," he said,
"which you may think worth looking at. I daresay it's of no importance,
but it struck me as rather odd."

He took a letter out of his pocket and handed it to the detective, who
opened it and read as follows:

"Si Milord ne rend pas ce qu'il ne doit pas garder, le coup de foudre lui
tombera sur la tete."

There was no signature, nor any date.

Gimblet turned the sheet over thoughtfully. The message was typewritten
on a piece of thin foreign paper; the postmark on the envelope was Paris,
and the stamps French. He folded it again and replaced it in its cover.

"It seems the usual threatening anonymous communication," he observed.
"Have you any idea who it's from?"

Mark shook his head.

"None," he confessed. "It looks, though, as if my uncle had in his
possession something belonging to the writer, doesn't it? Don't you
think it might have something to do with the murder?"

"I don't see why the murderer should send a threatening letter after the
deed was done," said the detective. "Still less could he have posted it
in Paris on the very day the crime was committed."

"No, that's true enough," Mark admitted reluctantly.

"Has any suspicious looking person been seen about this place, this
summer? Any foreigner, for instance?" asked the detective.

"No; no," Mark replied. "I should have heard of it for certain if there
had been. It would have been an event, down here."

Gimblet dropped the subject.

"If I may," he said. "I will keep this. It may lead to something,"
he added, tucking the letter away in an inside pocket. "That's all,
I suppose?"

Mark was silent for a minute. He seemed to be thinking.

"That's all I know about the murder," he said at last, "but there are
plenty of complications apart from that. I suppose Miss Byrne told you
that my uncle electrified us all by saying she was his daughter, only an
hour or so before he died?"

Gimblet nodded. "Yes," he said, "she told me."

"It makes it very awkward for me," said Mark. "I want to do the right
thing, but I'm hanged if I know what I ought to do. You see, my uncle
used to say that he'd left his property between me and David; he never
made any secret of it, and as a matter of fact I've had a communication
from his London lawyers, telling me they have a very old will, made when
I was a small boy, long before the birth of his son, and that everything
is left to me. There were reasons why he may have thought David would be
provided for--he was engaged to marry a very rich American, but she
dropped him yesterday like a red-hot coal as soon as it began to look as
if he'd be suspected. She's gone now, I'm glad to say. As a matter of
fact, if David can only be cleared of this horrible charge, I shall
insist on dividing my inheritance with him. That is, if I can't get Miss
Byrne to take it, or Miss McConachan, as I ought to call her now."

"Lord Ashiel could leave his money where he liked, couldn't he?"
Gimblet inquired.

"Yes, he could, but he would naturally have left it to his daughter, if
she really was his daughter. In fact, Miss McConachan says he told her he
had done so, but I haven't come across the will so far, though I had a
good hunt through his papers this morning; Blanston and the housekeeper,
who say they witnessed some document which may have been a will, have no
idea where it is. Of course, my uncle may have intended to say that he
was going to make one, and Miss McConachan may have misunderstood him,
but she seems to think he had some secret hiding-place of his own, and I
hope to goodness you'll be able to hit on it, if he had. I can't stand
the idea of profiting by a lost will, and I'd far rather simply hand over
the money than bother to look for this missing paper."

"Oh, I daresay it will turn up," said Gimblet. "You haven't had much time
to find it yet."

"My uncle was a very methodical man. Everything is in its place. You wait
till you see his papers! If he made a will he must have hidden it
somewhere where we shall never dream of looking for it. It's just waste
of time hunting about, and I shall have another try at persuading my new
cousin to let me make over everything to her."

"It is not every young man in your position who would part so readily
with a large fortune," observed Gimblet.

But Mark awkwardly deprecated his approving words.

"Oh," he said, "I'm sure any decent chap would do the same in my place."

CHAPTER X

"And now," said Gimblet, "may I visit the scene of the crime?"

Mark took him first to his uncle's bedroom; a room austere in its
simplicity, with bare white-washed walls and uncarpeted floor. No one
could have hidden a sheet of paper in that room, thought the detective,
as he gazed round it, after he had looked, with a feeling akin to
guilt, on the features of the dead peer. He had not known how to
protect this man from the dreadful fate that had struck him down from a
direction so utterly unexpected, and he held himself, in a way,
responsible for his death.

Then young Ashiel led him away, down a wide corridor into the
billiard-room, and so into another passage, at the end of which a door of
stout and time-darkened oak gave access to the library. It creaked
noisily on its hinges, as he pushed it open and ushered Gimblet in. They
stepped into a square room, comfortably furnished, with deep arm-chairs,
and a large chippendale writing-table which stood at right angles to the
bow window, so placed that anyone writing at it should have the light
upon his left. It was rather a dark room, the walls being lined with
books from floor to ceiling, except at two points: opposite the window an
alcove, panelled in ancient oak, appeared in the wall; and above the
fireplace, opposite the door, the wall was panelled in the same manner
and covered by an oil painting, representing Lord Ashiel's grandmother.
The polished boards were unconcealed by any rug or carpet, and reflected
a little of the light from the window. An ominous discoloration near the
writing-table showed plainly upon them.

In the glass of the mullioned casement was the small round hole made by
the fatal bullet.

Gimblet glanced at the bureau on which the writing materials were set out
in perfect order, and could not conceal his annoyance.

"Everything has been moved, I see," he said. "Why couldn't they leave it
as it was for a few hours longer?"

"Nothing was touched till after the police had gone," said Mark. "I
confess I did not think it necessary to leave things alone once they were
out of the house. Not only have the housemaids been at work in here, but
I spent most of the morning here myself, going through the papers in that
bureau. Will it matter much?" He spoke with evident dismay.

"Never mind," said Gimblet, "I suppose Macross's people photographed
everything, and I can get copies from them, I have no doubt. By the by,
what did Sir David Southern say about having been in the room while you
were in bed? Did he admit it; and did he say why he moved the body?"

"He said he'd not been near the place," replied Mark, looking more
perplexed and worried than ever. "I can't understand it at all," he
added. "Why should he deny it to me?"

Gimblet opened a drawer in the bureau. Papers filled it, tied together in
bundles and neatly docketed. They seemed to be receipted bills. He
glanced at the pigeon-holes, and opened one or two more drawers.
Everywhere the most fastidious order reigned.

"You have been through all these?" he asked.

"Yes, but there is a cupboard full in the smoking-room. I thought of
looking into those this afternoon."

"It would be a good plan," Gimblet agreed. "Don't let me keep you," And
as the young man still lingered, "I prefer," he confessed, "to do my
work alone. If you will kindly get me a shooting-boot of Sir David
Southern's, I shall do better if I am left to myself."

"If that is really the case," said Mark, "I have no choice but to leave
you. I admit I should have liked to see your methods, but if I should be
a hindrance--"

Gimblet did not deny it, and Mark departed to fetch the boots.

"This is not the identical pair," he said when he returned. "The police
took those; but these come from the same maker and are nearly the same,
so Blanston tells me."

"Ah, yes, Blanston," said Gimblet. "I must see him presently. Thanks
very much."

Left alone, Gimblet examined the window, opening one of the small-paned
casements, and measuring the space between the mullions and the central
bars of iron. Satisfied as to the impossibility of any ordinary-sized
person passing through those apertures, he took one more look round, and
then with a swift movement drew each of the heavy curtains across the
bay. They did not quite meet in the middle, as Juliet had observed. Then
he made his way out into the garden through the door just outside, at the
end of the passage which led from the billiard-room to the library.

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