The Ashiel mystery

M >> Mrs. Charles Bryce >> The Ashiel mystery

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The library was at the far end of the oldest portion of Inverashiel
Castle. To Gimblet, examining it from the outside, it looked as if the
room had been hewn out of the solid walls of the ancient fortress; for
beyond the mullioned, seventeenth-century window, the wall turned sharply
to the left and was continued with scarce a loophole in the stupendous
blocks of its surface for a distance of fifty yards or so, where it was
succeeded by the lower, less heavy battlements of the old out-works. In
the angle formed by the turn and immediately opposite the window of the
library, a long flower-bed, planted with standard and other rose trees,
with violas growing sparsely in between, stretched its blossoming length,
and continued up to the actual stones of the library wall. At the farther
end of it, a thick hedge of holly bordered on the roses at right angles
to the end of the battlements; while the lawn on his left was spangled
with geometrically shaped beds showing elaborate arrangements of
heliotrope, ageratum, calceolarias, and other bedding-out plants.

Gimblet walked slowly along the lawn at the edge of the bed, his eyes on
the black peaty mould, where it was visible among the flowers. About
twenty yards from the hedge, he stopped with a muffled exclamation. The
bed in front of him was covered with footprints of all shapes and sizes;
but plainly distinguishable among the rest were the neat nail-encrusted
marks which matched the boot he held in his hand. He put it down on the
ground and carefully made an imprint with it in the soil, beside the
existing footmarks. It was easy to single out its fellows.

"Two extra nails," murmured Gimblet to himself, "but otherwise, the same.
Probably made on the same last."

Stepping cautiously in the places where his predecessors had walked, he
followed the tracks that had betrayed Sir David Southern. They were
numerous and distinct; he counted fourteen of each separate foot. First
Sir David would seem to have walked straight across the bed, then
returned and taken up his position near the middle. He was not contented
with that, it seemed, for he had walked backwards five or six paces and
then moved sideways again till he was exactly opposite the opening
between the curtains. Here the ground was trampled down as if he had
several times shifted slightly from one place to another. Whether or not
he was exactly in line with the writing-table Gimblet could not see, as
its position was hidden in the obscurity behind the drawn curtains. It
would want a light there to prove that, thought Gimblet; still there was
no reason to doubt that it was so. There were four or five more
footmarks leading back to the lawn, and over these Gimblet stooped with
particular interest.

With a tape measure, which he took from his pocket, he measured the
distances between the prints, entering the various figures in his
notebook, beside carefully drawn diagrams. Then he picked his way to the
edge of the lawn, and stood a moment considering.

Apparently he was not satisfied, for presently he retraced his steps
delicately to the middle of the bed, till he was once more just behind
the place where the earth was trodden down. After pausing there an
instant, he turned once more, and ran quickly back to the grass, without
this time troubling himself to step in the chain of footprints used
previously by the police. But he had not even yet finished; and was soon
crouching down again, with the tape measure in one hand and the notebook
in the other, poring over the evidence preserved so carefully by the
impartial soil.

At last he got up, put his measure back in his pocket, and walked slowly
towards the hedge. He had nearly reached it when something at his feet
arrested his attention. He bent over it curiously.

Near the edge of the grass and parallel to it, there was an indentation a
little over an inch wide and about the same depth. It extended in a
straight line for perhaps nine inches, and what could have caused it was
a puzzle to Gimblet. The turf was unbroken, and it looked as if an
oblong, narrow, heavy object had rested there, sinking a little into the
ground so as to leave this strange mark. Gimblet rubbed his forehead
pensively, as he looked at it.

Suddenly as his introspective gaze wandered unconsciously over the ground
before him, his attention was arrested by a second mark of the same
perplexing shape, which he could see behind a rose-bush, more than
half-way across the bed. Stepping as near the hedge as he could, the
detective proceeded to examine this duplicate of the riddle. It seemed
absolutely the same, though deeper, as was natural on the soft mould, and
he found, by measuring, that it lay exactly parallel to the other. What
could it be, he asked himself. A moment later, still another and yet
stranger impression caught his eye. It was about the same width, but not
more than half as long, and rounded off at each end to an oval. It was
situated about a foot from the deep indentation and rather farther from
the holly hedge. A tall standard rose-tree, covered with blossoms of the
white Frau Karl Drouski rose, grew near it, interposing between it and
the house.

Gimblet measured it with painstaking precision; then with the help of
his measurements, he made a life-size diagram of it on the page of his
notebook, and studied it with an expression of annoyance. He had seldom
felt more at a loss to explain anything. At length he turned and went
back towards the grass.

"What a track I leave," he thought to himself, looking down ruefully at
his own footprints. "What I want is--" He stopped abruptly as a sudden
idea struck him; then a look of relief stole slowly over his face, and he
permitted himself a gratified smile, "To be sure!" he said, and seemed to
dismiss the subject from his mind.

Indeed, he turned his back upon the rose-bed, and strolled away by the
side of the hedge, which was of tall and wide proportions, providing a
spiky, impenetrable defence against observation, from the outside, of the
rectangular enclosed garden. Half-way along it he came upon an arched
opening. Passing through this, he found himself in an outer thicket, and
immediately upon his right hand beheld a small shed, which stood back,
modest and unassuming, in a leafy undergrowth of rhododendrons.

Gimblet pushed open the door and stepped inside.

The place was evidently a tool-house, used by the gardeners for storing
their implements. Rakes, spades, forks and hoes leant against the walls;
a shelf held a quantity of odds and ends: trowels, seedsmen's catalogues,
a pot of paint, a bundle of wooden labels, the rose of a watering-can,
and a dozen other small objects. On the floor were piled boxes and empty
cases; flowerpots stood beside a bag which bore the name of a patent
fertilizer; a small hand mowing-machine blocked the entrance; and a
plank, too long to lie flat on the ground, had been propped slantwise
between the floor and the roof. Bunches of bass hung from nails above the
shelf; and on the wall opposite, a coloured advertisement, representing
phloxes of so fierce an intensity of hue that nature was put to the
blush, had been tacked by some admirer of Art.

Five minutes later, when Gimblet emerged once more into the open, he
carried in one hand a garden rake. With this he proceeded to thread his
way through the shrubbery, keeping close to the line of the holly hedge.
When he thought he had gone about fifty yards, he lay down and peered
under the leaves. The hedge was rather thinner at the bottom; and, by
carefully pushing aside a little of the glossy, prickly foliage, he was
able to make out that the end of the rose-bed he had lately examined was
separated from him now only by the dividing barrier of the hedge. With
the rake still in his hand, he drew himself slowly forward, gingerly
introducing his head and arms under the holly, till he was prevented
from going farther by the close growing trunks of the trees that formed
the hedge.

It took some manoeuvring to insert the head of the rake through the
fence, but he did it at last, and found a gap which his arms would pass
also. Between, and under the lowest fringe of leaves on the farther side,
he could see the track of his own footsteps, where he had walked on the
bed. They were all, by an effort, within reach of his rake, and he
stealthily effaced them. He could not see whether the garden was still
untenanted, or whether the peculiar phenomenon of a rake moving without
human assistance was being observed by anyone from the castle. He
fervently hoped that it was not: he did not wish the attention of anyone
else to be called to the puzzling marks that had mystified him; and, as
the only window which looked into the garden was that of the library, he
thought there was a good chance that there was no one in sight.

Cautiously and almost silently he worked his way back, and replaced the
rake in the tool-house where he had found it. Then he took the small
oil-can used for oiling the mowing-machine, and concealing it under his
coat made towards the house. The little garden was still lonely and
deserted as he walked quickly over the lawn and in at the passage door.

The library was empty as he had left it, and his first act was to draw
back the curtains to their former positions on either side of the window.
Then he went to the door, and, with a glance to right and left along the
passage, and an ear bent for any approaching footstep, he quickly and
effectually oiled the hinges and lock, so that the door closed
noiselessly and without protest. When he was quite satisfied on this
point, he shut it gently, and took back the oil-can to the shed.

"Now," said he to himself, "for the gun-room."

He took up Sir David Southern's shooting-boots, which he had left in the
tool-house during his last proceedings, and made his way through the
billiard-room into the main corridor beyond. On his right, through an
open door, he peeped into a large room, obviously the drawing-room, and
saw that it looked on to the front of the house. The room wore a forlorn
aspect; no one, apparently, had taken the trouble to put it straight
since the night of the tragedy. The blinds had been drawn down, but the
furniture seemed awry as if chairs had been pushed back hastily, a little
card table still displayed a game of patience half set out, and even the
dead flowers in the glasses had not been thrown away.

The air was stuffy in the extreme, and Gimblet, with a disgusted sniff,
pulled aside one of the blinds and threw open the window. But all at once
a thought seemed to strike him. For a moment he stood irresolute, then he
slowly closed the casement again, but without latching it, and after
frowning at it thoughtfully walked away. He went back into the hall.

Opposite, across the corridor, rose the main staircase, wide and
imposing; on each side of it a smaller passage led away at right angles
to the entrance, the right-hand one giving access to rooms in the new
front of the castle, one of which he knew to be the dining-room. He
listened for a minute outside a door beyond it, and heard the sound of
rustling papers; the smell of tobacco came to him through the key-hole.
It was plain that here was the smoking-room, and that the new Lord Ashiel
was at that moment engaged in it, and deep in his uncle's papers.

The little detective, as he had said, preferred to work without an
audience when he could, so he left Mark to his search, and stole silently
away down the passage.

He passed two more rooms, and paused at the last door, opposite the foot
of a winding stair.

This, from what Juliet had said, must be the door of the gun-room.

The door opened readily at his touch, and he stepped inside and shut it
behind him.

It was a small bare room, with one large deal table in the middle of it.
Gun-cases and wooden cartridge-boxes were ranged on the linoleum-covered
floor, and three glass-fronted gun-cabinets were hung upon the walls.
One, the smallest of these, was of a different wood from the others, and
bore in black letters the initials D. S.

Three or four guns were ranged in it: two 12-bore shot-guns, an air-gun,
and a little 20-bore. Another rack was empty; no doubt it had held the
Mannlicher rifle, which the police had carried away to use as evidence
in their case for the prosecution. The door was locked and there was no
sign of a key.

Gimblet turned to the other cupboards.

There were more weapons here, and a few minutes' examination showed him
that, as Mark had said, he and his uncle were less particular as to where
their guns were kept, for the first two that the detective glanced at
bore Lord Ashiel's initial, and the next was an old air-gun with M. McC.
engraved on a silver disk at the stock.

Side by side were the rifles used by the uncle and nephew for stalking,
Gimblet knew from Mark that the Mannlicher was his, while Lord Ashiel had
apparently used a Mauser or Ross sporting rifle, as there was one of each
in the case.

Gimblet lifted down the Mannlicher and laid it on the table. This, then,
was the kind of weapon with which the deed had been done. It was a .355
Mannlicher Schonauer sporting weapon of the latest pattern. He opened it
and examined the mechanism, which he soon grasped. He squinted down the
glistening tunnel of the barrel and even closely scrutinized the
workmanship of the exterior, repressing a shudder at the meretricious
design of the chasing on the lock, and passing his fingers caressingly
over the wood of which the stock was made. It shone with a rich bloom, as
smooth and even as polished marble, except at the butt end which was
criss-crossed roughly to prevent slipping; but wood in any shape has a
homely friendly feeling, as different from any the polisher can impart to
a piece of cold stone as the forests, where it once stood, upright and
lofty, are from the inhospitable rocks on the peaks above them.

These unpractical reflections flitted through the detective's mind,
together with others of a less fantastic nature, as he put the rifle back
in the rack he had taken it from. He closed the glass doors of the
cabinet, leaving them unlocked, as he had found them. Then, going back to
the table, he took an empty pill-box from his pocket, and with the utmost
care swept into it a trace of dust from off the bare deal top.

There was barely enough to darken the cardboard at the bottom of the box,
but he looked at it, before putting on the lid, with an expression of
some satisfaction.

CHAPTER XI

Gimblet left the gun-room quietly; and after some more exploring
discovered the way to the back premises.

In the pantry he found Blanston, whom he invited to follow him to the
deserted billiard-room for a few minutes' conversation.

"You know," he told him, "Miss Byrne and your new young master want me to
examine the evidence that Sir David Southern is the author of this
terrible crime."

"I'm sure I wish, sir," said the man, "that you could prove he never did
it. A very nice young gentleman, sir, Sir David has always been; it seems
dreadful to think of him lifting his hand against his uncle. I'm sure it
ought to be a warning to us all to keep our tempers, but of course it was
very hard on Sir David to have his dog shot before his very eyes."

"No doubt," agreed Gimblet. "You weren't there when it happened, I
suppose?"

"No, sir, but I heard about it from one of the keepers, and Sir David was
very much put out about it, so he says; and I quite believe it, seeing
how fond he was of the poor creature. Always had it to sleep in his room,
he did, sir, though it was rather an offensive animal to the nose, to my
way of thinking. But these young gentlemen what are always smoking
cigarettes get to lose their sense of smell, I've often noticed that,
sir. Oh, I understand he was very angry indeed, sir, but I should hardly
have thought he would go so far as to take his uncle's life. Knowing him,
as I have done, from a child, I may say I shouldn't hardly have thought
it of him, sir."

"Life is full of surprises," said Gimblet, "and you never know for
certain what anyone may not do; but, tell me, you were the first on the
scene of the crime, weren't you?"

"Hardly that, sir. Miss Byrne was with his lordship at the time."

"Yes, yes, of course. But you saw him shortly after the shot was fired.
Did you hear the report?"

"No, sir. The hall is quite away from the tower, and so is the
housekeeper's room; and the walls are very thick. We were just finishing
supper, which was very late that night on account of the gentlemen coming
in late from stalking, and one thing and another. I'm rather surprised
none of us heard it, sir."

"I daresay there was a good deal of noise going on," said Gimblet. "How
many of you are there in the servants' quarters?"

"Counting the chauffeur and the hall boy," replied Blanston, "and
including the visitors' maids, who are gone now, we were sixteen servants
in the house that night. I am afraid there may have been rather a noise
going on."

"Were you all there?" asked Gimblet. "Had no one left since the beginning
of supper?"

"No one had gone out of the room or the hall since supper commenced,"
Blanston assured him. "We were all very glad of that afterwards, as it
prevented any of us being suspected, sir. Though in point of fact I was
saying only last night, when the second footman dropped the pudding just
as he was bringing it into the room, that we could really have spared him
better than what we could Sir David, sir; but of course it's natural for
the household to be feeling a bit jumpy till after the funeral to-morrow.
When that's over I shan't listen to no more excuses."

"Quite so," said Gimblet. "What was the first intimation you got that
there was anything wrong?"

"About half-past ten the billiard-room bell rang very loud, in the
passage outside the hall. Before it had stopped, and while I was calling
to George, the first footman, to hurry up and answer it, there came
another peal, and then another and another. I thought something must be
wrong, so I ran out of the room and upstairs with the others. When we got
to the billiard-room there was Miss Byrne fainting on a chair, and Mr.
McConachan beside her, looking very upset like. 'There's been an accident
or worse,' he says, 'to his lordship. Come on, Blanston, and let's see
what it is. And you others look after Miss Byrne. Fetch her maid; fetch
Lady Ruth.'

"And with that he makes for the library door, at a run, with me
following him close, though I was a bit puffed with coming upstairs so
fast. Just as we came to the library door, he turns and says to me, with
his hand on the knob, 'From what Miss Byrne says, Blanston, I'm afraid
it's murder.' And before I could more than gasp he had the door open,
and we were in the room.

"There was his poor lordship lying forward on the table, his head on the
blotting-book, and one arm hanging down beside him. Quite dead, he was,
sir, and his blood all on the floor, poor gentleman. We left him as we
found him, and went back.

"Mr. McConachan locked the door and put the key in his pocket. 'No one
must go in there till the police come,' he says. 'But in the meantime we
must get what men we can together, and see if the brute who did this
isn't lurking about the grounds. It will be something if we can catch
him, and avenge my poor uncle,' he said."

Gimblet considered for a moment.

"Are you sure you remember the position you found the body in?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," replied Blanston, in some surprise. "It was like I told you.
His head on the blotting-book and one arm with it. He must have fallen
straight forward on to the table."

"Thank you," said Gimblet. "One more question. I hear you witnessed a
will for Lord Ashiel a day or two before he died?"

"Yes, sir--I and Mrs. Parsons, the housekeeper."

"How did you know it was the will?"

"We didn't exactly know it was, sir, but afterwards, when it came out his
lordship had told Miss Byrne he had made one, we thought it must have
been that."

"I see," said Gimblet. "Thank you. That is all I wanted to know."

He sent for the other servants and interrogated them one by one, but
without adding anything fresh to what he had already learned.

He went thoughtfully away and sought out Mark in the smoking-room, where
he found him surrounded by packets of papers, which lay in heaps upon
the floor and tables.

"There's a frightful lot to look through," said the young man
despondently, looking up from his self-imposed task. "I haven't found
anything interesting yet. How did you get on? Do you think those
footmarks can possibly be anyone's but David's?"

"The boot you gave me fits them too well to admit of doubt, I'm afraid,"
said Gimblet. And as the other made a half-gesture of despair, "You must
give me more time," he said; "I may find some clue in the course of the
next two or three days. By the by, is your cousin a short man?"

"No," said Mark, "he's about my height. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, I had an idea," said Gimblet evasively. "But if he's as tall as you,
I had better begin again. I think I'll take a little stroll through the
grounds," he added, "and then back to Lady Ruth Worsfold's house, and get
a bath and a change."

"I shall see you at dinner-time," said Ashiel. "I am dining at the
cottage. Au revoir till then."

Gimblet went out of the front door, and proceeded to make a tour of the
Castle buildings.

Turning to his left round the front of the house, he passed the gun-room
door, and went down a short path, which led to the level of the servants'
quarters. These were built on the slope of the hill, so that what was a
basement in the front of the house was level with the ground at the back.

Here more remains of the old fortress were to be seen. The various
outbuildings that straggled down towards the loch had all once formed
part of old block-houses or outlying towers; and, as the path descended
farther down the hill, the detective found himself walking round the
precipitous rock from which the single great tower still standing--the
one in whose massive shell the room had been cut which was now the
library--dominated the scene from every side.

It had been built at the very edge of the hill which here fell almost
sheer to the level of the lake, and the old McConachans had no doubt
chosen their site for its unscalable position. Indeed, the place must
always have been impregnable from that side, the rock offering no
foothold to a goat till within twenty feet of the base of the tower,
where the surface was broken and uneven, and had, in places, been built
up with solid masonry. In the crevices up there, seeds had germinated and
grown to tall plants and bushes. Ivy hung about the face of the
escarpment like a scarf, and in one place a good-sized tree, a beech, had
established itself firmly upon a ledge and leant forward over the path
below in a manner that turned the beholder giddy. Its great roots had not
been able to grow to their full girth within the cracks and crannies of
the rocks; some of them had pushed their way in through the gaps in the
masonry, and the others curled and twisted in mid air, twining and
interlacing in an outspread canopy.

Beyond the tower ran the battlemented wall of the enclosed garden, its
foundations draped in the thrifty vegetation of the rocks.

At Gimblet's feet, on the other side of the path, brawled a burn,
hurrying on its way to the loch, and he followed its course slowly down
to the place where it mingled with the deep waters. A little beyond he
saw the point of a fir-covered peninsula, and wandered on under the
trees till he came to the end of it; there he sat down to think over what
he had heard and seen that afternoon. The wild beauty of the place
soothed and delighted him, and he felt lazily in his pocket for a
chocolate.

Below him, grey lichen-grown rocks jutted into the loch in tumbled,
broken masses, piled heedlessly one on the other, as if some troll of
the mountain had begun in play to make a causeway for himself. The great
stones, so old, so fiercely strong, stood knee-deep in the waters, over
which they seemed to brood with so patient and indifferent a dignity
that human life and affairs took on an aspect very small and
inconsiderable. They were like monstrous philosophers, he thought,
oblivious alike to time and to the cold waves that lapped their feet;
their heads crowned here and there with pines as with scattered locks,
the little tufts of heather and fern and grasses, that clung to them
wherever root hold could be found, all the clothing they wore against
the bitter blasts of the winds.

While he sat there a breeze got up and ruffled the loch; the ripples
danced and sparkled like a cinematograph, and waves threw themselves
among the rocks with loud gurglings and splashings. The air was suddenly
full of the noise and hurry of the waters. He got up and went to the end
of the peninsula. In spite of the dancing light upon the surface and the
merry sounds of the ripples, the water, he could see, was deep and dark;
a little way out a pale smooth stone rose a few feet above the level of
it, its top draped in a velvet green shawl of moss. A fat sea-gull sat
there; nor did it move when he appeared.

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