INSPECTOR STODDART'S COMPLETE MURDER MYSTERIES – 4 Intriguing Golden Age Thrillers in One Volume E-Book
Annie Haynes
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This carefully crafted ebook: "INSPECTOR STODDART'S COMPLETE MURDER MYSTERIES – 4 Intriguing Golden Age Thrillers in One Volume" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. The Man with the Dark Beard – Basil Wilton is accused of murdering his own father but is he the real killer or is the-man-with-the-dark-beard someone else known to him who is on a murdering spree? How is Basil's to-be father-in-law related to the whole affair? Who Killed Charmian Karslake? – The riddle around the murder of Charmian Karslake, an American actress, gets murkier at every step. Can Inspector Stoddart solve this puzzle? The Crime at Tattenham Corner – A gruesome death just before an important horse race looks out of place until Inspector Stoddart is called in to look into the matter. The Crystal Beads Murder – A broken necklace is the sole clue for Inspector Stoddart to solve a high-profile murder until it's too late! Annie Haynes (1865-1929) was a renowned golden age mystery writer and a contemporary of Agatha Christie, another famous crime writer, which often led to her comparison with the latter, and unfavourably so. Haynes's fictions are now lauded for their quick-pace action and sustaining aura of suspense till the end.
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INSPECTOR STODDART’S COMPLETE MURDER MYSTERIES
4 Intriguing Golden Age Thrillers in One Volume
Including The Man with the Dark Beard, Who Killed Charmian Karslake, The Crime at Tattenham Corner & The Crystal Beads Murder
Table of Contents
The Man with the Dark Beard
Chapter I
"The fact of the matter is you want a holiday, old chap."
Felix Skrine lay back in his easy chair and puffed at his cigar.
"I don't need a holiday at all," his friend contradicted shortly. "It would do me no good. What I want is—"
"Physician, heal thyself," Skrine quoted lazily. "My dear John, you have been off colour for months. Why can't you take expert advice—Gordon Menzies, for instance? You sent old Wildman to him last session and he put him right in no time."
"Gordon Menzies could do nothing for me," said John Bastow. "There is no cure for mental worry."
Felix Skrine made no rejoinder. There was an absent look in his blue eyes, as, tilting his head back, he watched the thin spiral of smoke curling upwards.
The two men, Sir Felix Skrine, K.C., and Dr. John Bastow, the busy doctor, had been friends from boyhood, though in later life their paths had lain far apart.
Skrine's brilliance had made its mark at school and college. A great career had been prophesied for him, and no one had been surprised at his phenomenal success at the Bar. The youngest counsel who had ever taken silk, his name was freely spoken of as certain to be in the list for the next Cabinet, and his knighthood was only looked upon as the prelude to further recognition. His work lay principally among the criminal classes; he had defended in all the big cases in his earlier days, and nowadays was dreaded by the man in the dock as no other K.C. of his time had been.
Dr. John Bastow, on the other hand, had been more distinguished at college for a certain dogged, plodding industry than for brilliance. Perhaps it was this very unlikeness that had made and kept the two men friends in spite of the different lines on which their lives had developed.
John Bastow still remained in the old-fashioned house in which he had been born, in which his father had worked and struggled, and finally prospered.
Sometimes Bastow had dreamed of Wimpole Street or Harley Street, but his dreams had never materialized. Latterly, he had taken up research work, and papers bearing his signature were becoming fairly frequent in the Medical Journals. Like his friend, Felix Skrine, he had married early. Unlike Bastow, however, Skrine was a childless widower. He had married a wife whose wealth had been of material assistance in his career. Later on she had become a confirmed invalid, but Skrine had remained the most devoted of husbands; and, since her death a couple of years ago, there had been no rumour of a second Lady Skrine.
In appearance the two friends presented a remarkable contrast. Bastow was rather beneath middle height, and broad, with square shoulders; his clean-shaven face was very dark, with thick, rugged brows and large, rough-hewn features. His deep-set eyes were usually hidden by glasses. Skrine was tall and good-looking—the Adonis of the Bar he had been called—but his handsome, ascetic-looking face was almost monk-like in its severity. Many a criminal had felt that there was not a touch of pity in the brilliantly blue eyes, the firmly-closed mouth. Nevertheless the mouth could smile in an almost boyish fashion, the blue eyes could melt into tenderness, as Dr. John Bastow and his motherless children very well knew.
The two men smoked on in silence for some time now.
John Bastow sat huddled up in his chair, his rather large head bent down upon his chest, his eyes mechanically watching the tiny flames spring up and then flicker down in the fire that was burning on the hearth.
From time to time Skrine glanced across at him, the sympathetic curiosity in his eyes deepening. At last he spoke:
"John, old chap, what's wrong? Get it off your chest, whatever it is!"
John Bastow did not raise his head or his eyes. "I wish to Heaven I could."
"Then there is something wrong," Skrine said quickly. "I have thought several times of late that there was. Is it anything in which I can help you—money?"
Bastow shook his head.
"A woman, then?" Skrine questioned sharply. "Whatever it may be, John, let me help you. What is the good of having friends if you do not make use of them?"
"Because—perhaps you can't," Bastow said moodily, stooping forward and picking up the poker.
Felix Skrine shot a penetrating glance at his bent head.
"A trouble shared is a trouble halved," he quoted. "Some people have thought my advice worth having, John."
"Yes, I know." Bastow made a savage attack on the fire with his poker. "But—well, suppose I put the case to you, Felix—what ought a man to do under these circumstances—supposing he had discovered—something—"
He broke off and thrust his poker in again.
Felix Skrine waited, his deep eyes watching his friend sympathetically. At last he said:
"Yes, John? Supposing a man discovered something—what sort of discovery do you mean?"
Bastow raised himself and sat up in his chair, balancing the poker in his hands.
"Suppose that in the course of a man's professional career he found that a crime had been committed, had never been discovered, never even suspected, what would you say such a man ought to do?"
He waited, his eyes fixed upon Skrine's face.
Skrine looked back at him for a minute, in silence, then he said in a quick, decided tone:
"Your hypothetical man should speak out and get the criminal punished. Heavens, man, we are not parsons either of us! You don't need me to tell you where your duty lies."
After another look at his friend's face, Bastow's eyes dropped again.
"Suppose the man—the man had kept silence—at the time, and the—criminal had made good, what then? Supposing such a case had come within your knowledge in the ordinary course of your professional career, what would you do?"
"What I have said!"
The words came out with uncompromising severity from the thin-lipped mouth; the blue eyes maintained their unrelaxing watch on John Bastow's face.
"I can't understand you, John. You must know your duty to the community."
"And what about the guilty man?" John Bastow questioned.
"He must look after himself," Skrine said tersely. "Probably he may be able to do so, and it's quite on the cards that he may be able to clear himself."
"I wish to God he could!" Bastow said with sudden emphasis.
As the last word left his lips the surgery bell rang loudly, with dramatic suddenness.
Bastow sprang to his feet.
"That is somebody I must see myself. An old patient with an appointment."
"All right, old fellow, I will make myself scarce. But one word before I go. You have said 'a man.' Have you changed the sex to prevent my guessing the criminal's identity? Because there is a member of your household about whom I have wondered sometimes. If it is so—and I can help you if you have found out—"
"Nothing of the kind. I don't know what you have got hold of," Bastow said sharply. "But, at any rate, I shall take no steps until I have seen you again. Perhaps we can discuss the matter at greater length later on."
"All right, old chap," Sir Felix said with his hand on the door knob. "Think over what I have said. I am sure it is the only thing to be done."
As he crossed the hall, the sound of voices coming from a room on the opposite side caught his ear. He went quickly across and pushed open the half-closed door.
"May I come in, Hilary?"
"Oh, of course, Sir Felix," a quick, girlish voice answered him.
The morning-room at Dr. John Bastow's was the general sitting-room of the family. Two of its windows opened on to the garden; the third, a big bay, was on the side of the street, and though a strip of turf and a low hedge ran between a good view could be obtained of the passers-by.
An invalid couch usually stood in this window, and Felix Bastow, the doctor's only son, and Skrine's godson and namesake, lay on it, supported by cushions and mechanical contrivances. Fee, as he was generally called, had been a cripple from birth, and this window, with its outlook on the street, was his favourite resting-place. People often wondered he did not prefer the windows on the garden side, but Fee always persisted that he had had enough of grass and flowers, and liked to see such life as his glimpse from the window afforded. He got to know many of the passers-by, and often, on a summer's day, some one would stop and hold quite a long conversation with the white-faced, eager-looking boy.
But Fee was not there this afternoon. It had been one of his bad days, and he had retired to his room early.
The voices that Sir Felix Skrine had heard came from a couple of young people standing on the hearthrug. Skrine caught one glimpse of them, and his brows contracted. The girl's head was bent over a bunch of roses. The man, tall and rather noticeably good-looking, was watching her with an expression that could not be misunderstood in his grey eyes.
The girl, Hilary Bastow, came forward to meet him quickly.
"Have you seen Dad, Sir Felix? He has been expecting you."
"I have just left him," Sir Felix said briefly. "I have only one minute to spare, Hilary, and I came to offer you my birthday wishes and to beg your acceptance of this."
There was something of an old-time courtesy in his manner as, very deliberately, he drew the roses from her clasp and laid them on the table beside her, placing a worn jewel-case in her hand.
The colour flashed swiftly over the girl's face.
"Oh, Sir Felix!"
After a momentary hesitation that did not escape Skrine's notice, she opened the case. Inside, on its bed of blue velvet, lay a string of magnificent pearls.
"O—h!" Hilary drew a deep breath, then the bright colour in her cheeks faded.
"Oh, Sir Felix! They are Lady Skrine's pearls."
The great lawyer bent his head. "She would have liked you to have them, Hilary," he said briefly. "Wear them for her sake—and mine."
He did not wait to hear her somewhat incoherent thanks; but, with a pat on her arm and a slight bow in the direction of the young man who was standing surlily aloof, he went out of the room.
The two he had left were silent for a minute, Hilary's head still bent over the pearls, the roses lying on the table beside her. At last the man came a step nearer.
"So he gives you his wife's pearls, Hilary. And—takes my roses from you."
As he spoke he snatched up the flowers, and as if moved by some uncontrollable influence, flung them through the open window. With a sharp cry Hilary caught at his arm—too late.
"Basil! Basil! My roses!"
A disagreeable smile curved Wilton's lips.
"You have the pearls."
"I—I would rather have the roses," the girl said with a little catch in her voice. "Oh, Basil, how could you—how could you be so silly?"
"Hilary! Hilary!" he said hoarsely. "Tell me you don't care for him."
"For him—for Sir Felix Skrine!" Hilary laughed. "Well, really, Basil, you are—Why, he is my godfather! Does a girl ever care for her godfather? At least, I mean, as—" She stopped suddenly.
In spite of his anger, Wilton could not help smiling.
"As what?" he questioned.
"Oh, I don't know what I meant, I am sure. I must be in a particularly idiotic mood this morning," Hilary returned confusedly. "My birthday has gone to my head, I think. It is a good thing a person only has a birthday once a year."
She went on talking rapidly to cover her confusion.
All the wrath had died out of Wilton's face now, and his deep-set, grey eyes were very tender as he watched her.
"How is it that you care for Skrine?" he pursued. "Not as—well, let us say, not as you care for me, for example?"
The flush on Hilary's face deepened to a crimson flood that spread over forehead, temples and neck.
"I never said—"
Wilton managed to capture her hands.
"You never said—what?"
Hilary turned her heated face away.
"That—that—" she murmured indistinctly.
Wilton laughed softly.
"That you cared for me? No, you haven't said so. But you do, don't you?"
Hilary did not answer, but she did not pull her hands away. Instead he fancied that her fingers clung to his. His clasp grew firmer.
"Ah, you do, don't you, Hilary?" he pleaded. "Just a little bit. Tell me, darling."
Hilary turned her head and, as his arm stole round her, her crimson cheek rested for a moment on his shoulder.
"I think perhaps I do—just a very little, you know, Basil"—with a mischievous intonation that deepened her lover's smile.
"You darling—" he was beginning, when the sound of the opening door made them spring apart.
Dr. Bastow entered abruptly. He cast a sharp, penetrating glance at the two on the hearthrug.
In his hand he held a large bunch of roses—the same that Basil Wilton had thrown out a few minutes before.
"Do either of you know anything of this?" he asked severely. "I was walking in one of the shrubbery paths a few minutes ago when this—these"—brandishing the roses—"came hurtling over the bushes, and hit me plump in the face."
In spite of her nervousness, or perhaps on that very account, Hilary smiled.
Her father glanced at her sharply.
"Is this your doing, Hilary?"
Before the girl could answer Wilton quietly moved in front of her. His grey eyes met the doctor's frankly.
"I must own up, sir. I brought the flowers for—for Miss—for Hilary's birthday. And then, because I was annoyed, I threw them out of the window."
For a moment the doctor looked inclined to smile. Then he frowned again.
"A nice sort of confession. And may I ask why you speak of my daughter as Hilary?"
Wilton did not flinch.
"Because I love her, sir. My dearest wish is that she may promise to be my wife—some day."
"Indeed!" said the doctor grimly. "And may I ask how you expect to support a wife, Wilton? Upon your salary as my assistant?"
Wilton hesitated. "Well, sir, I was hoping—"
Hilary interrupted him. Taking her courage in both hands she raised her voice boldly.
"I love Basil, dad. And I hope we shall be married some day."
"Oh, you do, do you?" remarked her father, raising his pince-nez and surveying her sarcastically. "I suppose it isn't the thing nowadays to ask your father's consent—went out when cropped heads and skirts to the knees came in, didn't it?"
Chapter II
"What is this I hear from your father?"
Miss Lavinia Priestley was the speaker. She was the elder sister of Hilary's mother, to whom she bore no resemblance whatever. A spinster of eccentric habits, of an age which for long uncertain was now unfortunately becoming obvious, she was almost the only living relative that the young Bastows possessed. Of her, as a matter of fact, they knew but little, since most of her time was spent abroad, wandering about from one continental resort to another. Naturally, however, during her rare visits to England she saw as much as possible of her sister's family, by whom in spite of her eccentricity she was much beloved. Of Hilary she was particularly fond, though at times her mode of expressing her affection was somewhat arbitrary.
In appearance she was a tall, gaunt-looking woman with large features, dark eyes, which in her youth had been fine, and a quantity of rather coarse hair, which in the natural course of years should have been grey, but which Miss Lavinia, with a fine disregard of the becoming, had dyed a sandy red. Her costume, as a rule, combined what she thought sensible and becoming in the fashions of the past with those of the present day. The result was bizarre.
Today she wore a coat and skirt of grey tweed with the waist line and the leg-of-mutton sleeves of the Victorian era, while the length and the extreme skimpiness of the skirt were essentially modern, as were her low-necked blouse, which allowed a liberal expanse of chest to be seen, and the grey silk stockings with the grey suede shoes. Her hair was shingled, of course, and had been permanently waved, but the permanent waves had belied their name, and the dyed, stubbly hair betrayed a tendency to stand on end.
She repeated her question.
"What is this I hear from your father?"
"I really don't know, Aunt Lavinia."
"You know what I mean well enough, Hilary. You want to engage yourself to young Wilton."
"I am engaged to Basil Wilton," Hilary returned with a sudden access of courage.
Miss Lavinia raised her eyebrows.
"Well, you were twenty yesterday, Hilary, out of your teens. It is time you were thinking of matrimony. Why, bless my life, before I was your age I had made two or three attempts at it."
"You! Aunt Lavinia!" Hilary stared at her.
"Dear me, yes!" rejoined Miss Lavinia testily. "Do you imagine because I have not married that I was entirely neglected? I don't suppose that any girl in Meadshire had more chances of entering the state of holy matrimony, as they call it, than I had. But you see I went through the wood and came out without even the proverbial crooked stick."
"I remember Dad telling me you had been engaged to a clergyman," Hilary remarked, repressing a smile.
"My dear, I was engaged to three," Miss Lavinia corrected. "Not all at once, of course. Successively."
"Then why did you not marry some—I mean one of them?" Hilary inquired curiously.
Miss Lavinia shrugged her shoulders.
"I don't know. Thought somebody better would turn up, I suppose. And I had to do something. Life in the country is really too appallingly uninteresting for words, if one is not engaged to the curate."
"What did the curates think on the matter?"
"I am sure I don't know," Miss Lavinia returned carelessly. "One of them died—the one I liked the best. Doubtless he was spared much. Another is an archdeacon. The third—I really don't know what became of him—a mousy-looking little man in spectacles. His father had seventeen children. Enough to choke anyone off the son, I should think. Not at all in my line!"
Hilary coughed down a laugh. The vision conjured up of her maiden aunt with a numerous progeny of mousy-looking, embryo curates was somewhat overpowering.
"To change the subject," Miss Lavinia went on briskly, "who is this parlourmaid of yours, Hilary?"
"Parlourmaid!" Hilary echoed blankly. "Why, she is just the parlourmaid, Aunt Lavinia."
"Don't be a fool, Hilary," rebuked her aunt tartly. "I know she is the parlourmaid. But how did she come to be your parlourmaid? That's what I want to know. Did you have good references with her? That sort of thing. What's her name?"
"Her name?" debated Hilary. "Why, Taylor, of course. We always call her Taylor. Oh, you mean her Christian name. Well, Mary Ann, I think. And we had excellent references with her. She is quite a good maid. I have no fault to find with her."
"She doesn't look like a Mary Ann Taylor," sniffed Miss Lavinia. "One of your Dorothys or Mabels or Veras, I should have said. She is after your father—casting the glad eye you call it nowadays."
"After Dad!" Indignation was rendering Hilary almost speechless.
"Dear me, yes, your father," Miss Lavinia repeated with some asperity. "He won't be the first man to be made a fool of by a pretty face, even if it does belong to one of his maids. And this particular girl is making herself very amiable to him. I have watched her. By the way, where is your father tonight? He is generally out of the consulting-room by this time, and I want a word with him before bed-time. That is why I came after dinner."
"He is rather late," Hilary said; "but he had ever so many people to see before dinner, and I dare say he has had more writing to do since in consequence."
"That secretary of his gone home, I suppose?"
"Miss Houlton? Oh, yes. She goes home at seven. But really, Aunt Lavinia, she is a nice, quiet girl. Dad likes her."
Miss Lavinia snorted.
"Dare say he does. As he likes your delightful parlourmaid, I suppose. In my young days men didn't have girls to wait on them. They had men secretaries and what not. But nowadays they have as many women as they can afford. Believe it would be more respectable to call it a harem at once!"
Hilary laughed.
"Oh, Aunt Lavinia! The girls and men of the present day aren't like that. They don't think of such things."
"Nonsense!" Miss Lavinia snapped her fingers. "Short skirts and backless frocks haven't altered human nature!"
"Haven't they?" Hilary questioned with a smile. "But we will send for Dad, Aunt Lavinia. He always enjoys a chat with you."
"Not always, I fancy," Miss Lavinia said grimly. "However, he gets a few whether he enjoys them or not."
As she finished the parlourmaid opened the door. She was looking nervous and worried.
"Oh, Miss Hilary—" she began. "The doctor—"
"Well?" interrupted Miss Lavinia "What of the doctor?"
"He is in the consulting-room, ma'am, but he doesn't take any notice when we knock at the door. Mr. Wilton and I have both been trying."
"What are you making such a fuss about?" said Miss Lavinia contemptuously. "The doctor doesn't want to be disturbed. That is all."
The maid stood her ground, and again addressed Hilary:
"I have never known the doctor lock the door on the inside before, miss."
"Well, of course, if it was locked on the outside, he would not be there," Miss Lavinia rejoined sensibly. "I'll go and knock. He'll answer me, I'll warrant."
Hilary was looking rather white.
"I will come too, Aunt Lavinia. Dad often sits up late over his research work. But he promised me he wouldn't to-night. It was my birthday yesterday and he had to go out, so he said he would come in for a chat quite early this evening."
Miss Lavinia was already in the hall.
"I expect the chat would have been a lively one from the few words I had with him when I came in. Well, what are you doing?"
This question was addressed to Basil Wilton, who was standing at the end of the passage leading to the consulting-room.
Like the parlourmaid, he was looking pale and worried. Miss Lavinia's quick eyes noted that his tie was twisted to one side and that his hair, short as it was, was rumpled up as if he had been thrusting his hands through it.
"There is an urgent summons for the doctor on the phone, and we can't make him hear," he said uneasily.
"I dare say he has gone out by the door on the garden side," Miss Lavinia said briskly. "Yes, of course that is how it would be. Locked the door on this side and gone off the other way to see some patient."
"That door is locked too," Wilton said doubtfully. "And the doctor has never done such a thing before."
"Bless my life! There must be a first time for everything," Miss Lavinia rejoined testily. "Don't look so scared, Mr. Wilton. I'll go to the door. If he is in, he will answer me, and if he isn't—well, we shall just have to wait."
She pushed past Wilton. Shrugging his shoulders, he followed her down the passage.
There were no half measures with Miss Lavinia. Her knock at the door was loud enough to rouse the house, but there came no response from within the room.
Meanwhile quite a little crowd was collecting behind her—Wilton, Hilary and a couple of the servants.
"Nobody there, anyhow," she observed. "That knock would have fetched the doctor if he had been in. Come, Hilary, it is no use standing here gaping."
She turned to stride back to the morning-room, when the parlourmaid interposed:
"I beg your pardon, ma'am. I think—I'm afraid the doctor is there."
Miss Lavinia stared at her.
"What do you mean? If the doctor were there he would have answered me."
The maid hesitated a moment, her face very white. As she looked at her even Miss Lavinia's weather-beaten countenance seemed to catch the reflection of her pallor. It turned a curious greenish grey.
"What do you mean?" she repeated.
"I have been into the garden, ma'am. I remembered that the blind in the consulting-room did not fit very well, and I went and looked through. The light was on and I could see—I think—I am sure that I could see the doctor sitting on the revolving chair before his table. His head is bent down on his arms."
"Then he must have fainted—or—or something," Miss Lavinia said, her strident tones strangely subdued. "Don't look so scared, Hilary; I don't suppose it is anything serious."
Wilton touched Hilary, who was leaning against the wall.
"We shall have to break the door in, dear. And you must not stay here; we shall want all the room we can get."
"Break the door in!" Miss Lavinia ejaculated in scornful accents. "Why, Mr. Wilton, you will be suggesting sliding down through the chimney next! Go to this window in the garden that you have just heard of. If it is closed—and I expect it is, for doctors are a great deal fonder of advising other people to keep their windows open than of doing it themselves—smash a pane, put your hand in and unlatch it, and pull the sash up. It will be easy enough then."
"Perhaps that will be best," Wilton assented doubtfully.
"Of course it will be best," Miss Lavinia said briskly. "You stay here, Hilary. We will open the door to you in a minute Come along, Mr. Wilton."
She almost pushed the young man before her down the passage and out at the surgery door. That opened on to the street, and a few steps farther on was a green door in the high wall which surrounded the doctor's garden. That was unfastened. As Miss Lavinia pushed it open she raised her eyebrows.
"Anybody could come in here, burgle the house and leave you very little the wiser," she remarked with a glance at Wilton.
"Yes; but it isn't generally left open like this," he said as he closed it behind them. "It is always kept locked by Dr. Bastow's orders unless anything is wanted for the garden—coal for the greenhouse, or manure."
But Miss Lavinia was not attending to him. She broke into a run as they emerged from the little shrubbery and began to cross the narrow strip of grass that lay between it and the house. On the farther side of this, immediately under the windows, there was a broad gravel path.
Miss Lavinia hurried across it, and placing her hands on the window-sill moved her head up and down.
"Well, how that young woman saw into this room puzzles me! The blind is drawn as close as wax!"
"On that side perhaps." Wilton had come up behind her, and now drew her across.
Here the blind seemed to have been pushed or caught aside, and any tall person standing outside could see right into the room; since much to Miss Lavinia's amazement the curtain inside was also caught up.
"Why, it's a regular spy-hole!" she said as, putting her hands on the window-sill and raising herself on tiptoe, she applied her eyes to the glass.
A moment later she dropped down with a groan.
"She is right enough. John is there, and I don't like the way he sits huddled up in his chair. Mr. Wilton, you had better get in as soon as you can."
Wilton needed no second bidding. One blow shattered the pane nearest him, and putting his arm through he raised the catch, then the sash, and then vaulted into the room. Miss Lavinia waited, one arm round Hilary, who had joined her.
It seemed a long time before Wilton came back, but it was not in reality more than a minute or two before he parted the curtains again; and stood carefully holding them so that Hilary could not see into the room.
"I fear the doctor is very ill," he said gravely. "I have the key. We will go round."
Hilary threw off her aunt's arm.
"Go back to Dad, Basil. What do you mean by leaving him? I can get in this way too."
She put her hands on the window-sill, and would have scrambled in, but Wilton held her back at arm's length.
"You don't understand, Hilary. You can do no good here. Your father is—"
"Dead—no, no—not dead!" Hilary said wildly.
Wilton's eyes sought Miss Lavinia's as he bent his head in grave assent.
Chapter III
"Murdered? God bless my soul! I never heard such nonsense in my life!" Miss Lavinia Priestley was the speaker.
Basil Wilton was facing her and beside him was a short, rather stout man. Dr. James Greig was an old friend of Dr. Bastow's and a telephone summons had brought him on the scene. A third person at whom Miss Lavinia had scarcely glanced as yet stood behind the other two.
As a matter of fact, very few people did glance a second time at William Stoddart, which fact formed a by no means inconsiderable asset in Stoddart's career in the C.I.D. For William Stoddart was a detective, and one of the best known in the service too, in spite of his undistinguished exterior.
Neither particularly short nor particularly tall, neither particularly stout nor particularly thin, he seemed to be made up of negatives. His small, thin, colourless face was the counterpart of many others that might have been seen in London streets, though in reality Stoddart hailed from the pleasant Midland country. His eyes were grey, not large. He had a trick of making them appear smaller by keeping them half closed; yet a look from those same grey eyes had been known to be dreaded by certain criminal classes more than anything on earth. For it was an acknowledged fact that Detective-Inspector Stoddart had brought more of his cases to a successful conclusion than any other officer in the force.
That he should have come this morning on the matter of Dr. John Bastow's death showed that in the opinion of the Scotland Yard authorities there were some mysterious circumstances connected with that death.
So far, since with the two doctors he had entered the morning-room to confront Miss Lavinia and her niece, he had not spoken, nor did he break the silence now. Dr. James Greig took upon himself the office of spokesman.
He answered Miss Lavinia, to whom he was slightly known.
"I am very sorry, Miss Priestley, that there can be no doubt on the point. Dr. Bastow was shot through the head—the shot entered at the back. It is quite certain that the pistol was fired at close quarters and was probably held just behind the ear."
"My God!" The exclamation came from Miss Lavinia.
Hilary shivered from head to foot. The twentieth-century girl does not faint—she merely turned a few degrees whiter as she glanced from Dr. Greig's face to Basil's, from his again to that of the great detective.
"But what do you mean? He couldn't have been murdered. Nobody would have murdered him," Miss Lavinia cried, too much staggered to be quite coherent now. "Everybody liked John!"
"I'm afraid it is evident that some one did not," Dr Greig said firmly. "The murderer must have been some one the doctor knew too. You see he had allowed him to come quite close."
"Allowed him or her?" a dry voice interposed at this juncture.
Sir Felix Skrine had entered the morning-room by the door immediately behind Miss Lavinia and Hilary. He grasped Miss Lavinia's hand with a word of sympathy and touched Hilary's arm with a mute, fatherly gesture, as he went on addressing himself to Dr. Greig.
"There is nothing to show the sex of a person who fires an automatic revolver, you know, doctor." Then he looked across at the detective and nodded. "Glad to see you here, Stoddart. I would sooner have you in charge of a case of this kind than any man I know."
The detective looked gratified.
"You are very kind, Sir Felix. But we all have our failures."
"Very few in your case," Skrine assured him. "But I want a little talk with you as soon as I can have it, Stoddart. Miss Lavinia, I am going to take you and Hilary up to the drawingroom for the present. Later every one in the house will have to give their account of last night's happenings, to the inspector. For the present I take it you and Hilary have nothing to say."
"Nothing," Miss Lavinia assured him. "We were waiting for my brother-in-law to come in for a few last words, as he always did, you know, Sir Felix."
"I know," Skrine assented.
"Well, we waited and waited, for he had promised me his advice in rather a difficult matter," Miss Lavinia went on. "And he didn't come. At last the parlourmaid told us they couldn't make him hear. I said he must have been called out, but she said he hadn't. We went down and—found out what had happened. I mean—found that John was dead. Of course I thought he had had a fit, or something. I could not guess—"
In spite of her iron self-control her voice gave way. Now Inspector Stoddart for the first time took command of the situation.
"I think if you would allow us just to see the scene of the tragedy and to make a few inquiries while the matter is fresh, it will be better, madam," he said politely. "You shall hear everything later."
Up in the drawing-room Sir Felix drew forward two big easy chairs to the fire that had been hastily lighted and put Miss Lavinia and Hilary into them.
"I will come back as soon as I can," he said sympathetically.
Then he and the detective went to the scene of the tragedy. A policeman was stationed at the door of the consulting-room. He saluted respectfully.
Sir Felix paused with a shiver of distaste.
"He—it has been taken away, I presume?"
The detective nodded.
"Of course, Sir Felix. Nothing else has been touched, but after the police surgeon had made his examination the body was taken to the doctor's bedroom." He opened the door as he spoke and stood back for Sir Felix.
The lawyer motioned to him to go in.
"I cannot treat this as an ordinary case," he said brokenly. "He was my lifelong friend."
The two men glanced at him sympathetically. Then the inspector pushed the door wider and went in softly. Over his shoulder Skrine looked in.
Everything was as usual except that the revolving chair before the big writing-table was empty. For the rest, the curtains had been drawn over the window, but the room looked exactly as it had done when Wilton sprang in.
The inspector went straight to the vacant chair, and Skrine followed him.
"It was easy enough to see the hole by which the bullet had entered," the inspector remarked. "A stream of blood had trickled down the neck and on to his collar and shirt. All round the wound the flesh was blackened and discoloured."
It seemed to Skrine as he stood with his hand on the writing-table that his friend was still there, watching him with the same faintly detached air of amusement that had so often greeted him. In spite of his self-control Skrine's lips trembled.
"Brute and fiend! To murder a man like John Bastow! He—hanging is too good for him, Stoddart."
"Or her? As you said just now," the detective reminded him.
"Or her," Skrine assented. "The fiend must have come right up to him, Stoddart. You have the pistol?"
The detective shook his head.
"Not a sign of it, Sir Felix."
Skrine turned away, blowing his nose noisily.
"He—he wasn't alarmed in any way, you say, Stoddart," he said after a pause. "Then the fiend must have come through the garden door and stolen up behind him silently."
"Or been some one he was accustomed to see and with whom he regarded himself as perfectly safe," the detective suggested.
Skrine turned and looked at him.
"You mean—you suspect some one?"
"No, I don't," the detective said bluntly. "I beg your pardon, Sir Felix. I mean what I said—no more. To my mind it is self-evident that the murderer was some one known to Dr. Bastow—some one with whom he was sufficiently at home to go on with his work while the other was moving about the room. To me it hardly seems possible that anyone strange could have got into the room and shot Dr. Bastow without his knowing there was anyone there. Still one cannot rule out the possibility—"
"No," said Sir Felix. "No, of course one cannot." Then he stood absolutely motionless, his eyes fixed on the paper that was spread before the dead man's place. There were a few lines of writing and then the pen lay with a long zigzagging mark across the whiteness beneath, just as it must have fallen from the stiffening fingers.
The detective drew a small leather case from his pocket, and proceeded to take out a strong magnifying-glass, a pill-box full of fine grey powder and a tiny pair of tweezers. Then he changed his pince-nez for spectacles and turned to the window by which Wilton had entered and began to examine the curtains and blind with meticulous care. It occupied a good deal of time and seemed unproductive of any result.
Meanwhile Skrine, still looking at the paper, uttered a sharp exclamation. The detective looked up.
"This letter he was writing was to me," the lawyer said pointing downwards.
"Ah, I was coming to that." Stoddart did not turn.
The lawyer read aloud the few words the dead man had written:
"Dear Felix,
"I have been thinking over our conversation and have now decided upon my line of action with regard to the discovery I spoke of. I fancy you know what I meant. But it is, of course, quite possible that I am wrong. The proofs, such as they are, are in my Chinese box. But I shall always maintain—"
Then death had stepped in and the sentence remained unfinished for ever. Skrine's voice trembled as he read it aloud.
The detective was now prowling about near the door leading into the garden. He picked up some tiny fragments of what looked like mud with his tweezers and, after examining them through the magnifying-glass, laid them carefully in the little box in his hand. Then he came over to Skrine.
"You know to what those words refer, I take it, Sir Felix?"
Skrine nodded.
"As is self-evident, to a conversation that we had had that very afternoon."
"Do you think that conversation could in any way help us now?"
"I scarcely think so. It was all so vague really. But you shall judge for yourself. It has appeared to me for some time that Dr. Bastow was not in the best of health. So far, however, he had always evaded the subject when I mentioned it, but yesterday I taxed him with it directly. After beating about the bush for some time he admitted that his sickness was more of the mind than the body. In the course of his professional career he had discovered something connected with a crime that had been committed, and he was undecided what to do about it. He had a very sensitive nature, and it was preying upon his mind. He wanted my advice. I gave it to the best of my ability, not knowing any of the details of the affair, and he seemed inclined to accept it, but said he would see me again before deciding. He is absolutely wrong when he says he thinks I know what he meant. I should imagine from this letter"—tapping it as it lay on the table—"that he had made his decision before consulting me any further."
The detective looked at the paper then back again at Skrine standing behind the vacant chair.
"What does he mean by his Chinese box? We had better have that."
Skrine looked round vaguely.
"I take it he meant a box that generally used to stand on the table before him with gold dragons sprinkled over a red lacquer background—that sort of thing, don't you know. I don't see it now."
"It isn't here," said the detective quickly. "But perhaps he put it in some place of safety. How big a box was it?"
Sir Felix looked doubtful.
"Oh, about so big, I should say," holding his hands about a foot apart.
The detective nodded.
"It would go in the safe, then. We must search for it there. But first, Sir Felix, I must ask if you really had no idea of the nature of the discovery he had made, or why it was troubling him?"
"Really no knowledge whatever. But naturally one makes surmises—especially in a profession like mine. It is almost unavoidable."
"Of course." The detective looked puzzled. "But I am sure you appreciate the importance of this as well as, if not much better than I do, Sir Felix. Do you connect this secret of the doctor's with his murder?"
"N—o," Sir Felix said slowly. "Not if it is as I surmise. I really don't see that it could have any connexion with his death."
"You feel sure that you don't know the cause of the worry of which Dr. Bastow was speaking to you?"
"No, I don't," Sir Felix said bluntly. "I really feel sure of nothing."
The detective rubbed the side of his nose reflectively.
"I think you will have to tell us the nature of the secret, Sir Felix, or rather of what you surmise the nature to have been. I know you realize the importance of placing every detail in the hands of the police," he added.
Sir Felix did not hesitate.
"Certainly. The only stipulation I make is that I do not speak until your examination of the household is complete."
The inspector did not look satisfied. Had the man to whom he was speaking been almost anyone else, he would have insisted on a full disclosure at once, but Sir Felix Skrine was no ordinary person to him.
"Very well, Sir Felix," he said grudgingly at last. "But now I must ask you something else. Can you tell me the names of any men among Dr. Bastow's friends or acquaintances who wear dark beards?"
"Dark beards!" Sir Felix looked amazed at the question. "There may have been dozens. I don't know."
"But can you remember the names of any of them?" the detective persisted.
Sir Felix raised his eyebrows.
"Not at the moment. Yet stay—there is Dr. Sanford Morris, noted for his research work, and John Lavery, an old schoolfellow of ours. He lives near Lancaster Gate, but I don't think Dr. Bastow saw much of him; though I have met him here on special occasions—anniversaries, etc. I believe they both have dark beards, but why do you ask?"
"I will show you, Sir Felix, though, mind you, I shall say nothing about it to anyone else at present." The detective drew a sheet of notepaper from the blotting-book before the dead man's chair; across it was scrawled in big, bold handwriting—like that of the half-finished letter Skrine had just been studying—
"It was the Man with the Dark Beard."
"What do you think of that, Sir Felix?" Sir Felix stared at the paper in astonishment.
"It is Dr. Bastow's writing. But what does it mean?" he inquired at last.
The detective shook his head.
"I don't know. I can't see how the words could refer to the murder or the murderer. Even if the doctor recognized him death was instantaneous. And yet I can't help fancying that they do refer to the murderer."
"I don't see how they can," Sir Felix dissented still in the same perplexed tone. "And there are heaps of men with dark beards—"
"You could only remember two just now," remarked the detective.
"Not at the moment. But I don't know all Dr. Bastow's acquaintances or patients."
"Of course not," the detective assented. "But these two you have mentioned. One is a doctor engaged in the same sort of work as Dr. Bastow, you said. The other—Mr. Lavery—what is he?"
"He is in Somerset House, the Estate Duties Office," Sir Felix replied. "Still, as I say, I have seen little of him for years. But neither of these men could have had anything to do with the murder."
"Well, we can't be sure of anything," the detective returned dogmatically. "I will just finish in this room, and then we will see the household." Magnifying-glass in hand he went back to the window. Sir Felix followed him.
"What are you doing here? I think it is pretty well established that the murderer entered by the garden door. Footprints and fingerprints you find here will be those of Mr. Wilton, who broke this window to get in."
"Precisely," the inspector returned dryly. "But I am not looking for prints of any kind at the present moment, Sir Felix. I was just wondering how this curtain and blind could have been arranged so that anyone in the garden could see into the room. It seems to me that it could only have been done purposely."
Sir Felix looked at him.
"Do you mean that anyone outside could see into this room—that they witnessed the murder?"
Inspector Stoddart went on arranging the curtain, pulling it back, twisting it to one side.
"I don't know what anybody witnessed, Sir Felix. I shouldn't be surprised if it was—just that! What I want to know is—was it purposely arranged? And if so why was it arranged for this particular night?"
Sir Felix passed his hand over his forehead wearily.
"I can't understand what you are talking about. Why do you imagine that anyone saw anything through this window?"
"Because Miss Lavinia Priestley saw the body in the chair through this window before Mr. Wilton broke in," the detective went on. "Yes, I think I can see how it was managed. But could it have been accidental? It does not look to me as if it could be. But I will just take a glance at it from the outside."
Sir Felix Skrine appeared about to speak, but the detective did not wait to hear what he had to say.
Skrine did not attempt to follow him into the garden. He waited beside his dead friend's chair, the horror and pity in his eyes deepening. Presently Stoddart came back.
"Yes; quite easy to see what they said they did," he remarked. "But I wonder who wanted to look through. That girl who was the first to say Dr. Bastow was in his chair?"
"What girl? Whom are you speaking of?" Sir Felix questioned.
"The parlourmaid," the detective answered, still looking at his spy-hole among the curtains. "She went round to the garden window when they found both doors locked and told them the doctor was in the chair. The question to my mind is, did she know she could see into the room, or was it just guess-work?"
Chapter IV
"Yes, the inquest is to be opened tomorrow," Miss Lavinia said tartly. "Today this detective seems to be holding a sort of Grand Inquisition of his own. For my part I shouldn't have thought such a thing was legal in England, which we used to be told was a free country, though I am sure I don't know what we are coming to."
Skrine's troubled face relaxed into a smile.
"Why should this man be allowed to treat the house as if it belonged to him?" she continued crossly. "There he sits at a table in the morning-room, his papers all spread out—ruining the polish, of course, but that is a detail—and there we have to go in to him one by one like schoolchildren and tell him what we know of last night's doings. He wouldn't even have Hilary and me in together. As if we should be likely to tell him lies."
"It is the rule," Sir Felix remarked mildly, "for the witnesses to give their evidence separately, or rather I should say the statements upon which they will be examined later on."
"I call it a ridiculous proceeding," Miss Lavinia said, turning her shoulder on him. "The servants are going in now like the animals into the Ark, only one by one instead of two by two. Of course they resent it! I don't wonder that one of them has run away."
Sir Felix pricked up his ears.
"Has one of them run away? I didn't know."
"None of us did know until just now," Miss Lavinia went on testily. "Till she was rung for and didn't arrive to answer the bell and couldn't be found. It seems she was one this officious policeman particularly wanted too. Should have taken care to have had her looked after better, I say."
"But the doors are all guarded," Sir Felix said in a puzzled tone.
Miss Lavinia snapped her fingers.
"That for your noodles of policemen. The girl put on her best clothes and walked out of the front door. The man spoke to her and she said she was a friend who had been staying the night with Miss Bastow. Your brilliant policeman beckoned a taxi and held the door open for her politely. What do you think of that?" Apparently Sir Felix Skrine did not think anything of it—apparently he was not paying any attention to Miss Lavinia's remarks. His eyes, straying over the garden, had focused themselves on the gate—the gate through which the murderer must have come.
Miss Lavinia looked at him impatiently.
"I see you haven't lost your old trick of day-dreaming, Sir Felix."
Sir Felix awoke from his abstraction with a start.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Priestley. You were speaking of the missing maidservant—is it the parlourmaid?"
"Yes, it is the parlourmaid," returned Miss Lavinia irritably. "Though why you should pitch on her I don't know. A forward-looking minx she was! Calling herself Mary Ann Taylor, which I don't believe was her name any more than it is mine. I'm not at all sure I haven't seen her somewhere before, but I can't remember where."
"She was a very good-looking woman," Sir Felix said dreamily.
Miss Lavinia opened her eyes.
"You don't mean to say that you have noticed that! I am sure I never gave you credit for even knowing that such people as parlourmaids existed. But there! It's no use deluding oneself with the idea that any man, monk or dreamer or what not, does not keep his eyes open for a pretty face."
Sir Felix did not look quite pleased.
"How is Hilary now?"
"As well as she is likely to be after having her father murdered last night, and having been catechized for goodness knows how long by a brute of a detective this morning," Miss Lavinia retorted. "At the present moment she is in the drawing-room, being consoled by her young man I presume, till his turn comes to go in."
Sir Felix frowned.
"Do you mean Wilton?"
Miss Lavinia stared at him.
"Well, of course. Anybody can see they are head over ears in love with one another."
"A boy and girl affair," Sir Felix said impatiently.
"Boys and girls know their own minds nowadays," was Miss Lavinia's conclusion.
Meanwhile in the morning-room Detective Inspector Stoddart was turning papers over impatiently. Matters were not going quite to Inspector Stoddart's liking. So far his examination of the household had not elucidated the mystery surrounding Dr. John Bastow's death at all. And yet the detective had the strongest instinct or presentiment, whatever you may like to call it, that the clue which would eventually lead him through the labyrinth was to be found amongst them.
At last, pushing the papers from him impatiently, he walked to the door.
"Jones, ask Mr. Wilton to step this way."
The policeman saluted and went off; in another minute Basil Wilton appeared.
"You want to take my statement, I understand, inspector?"
The inspector frowned.
"Yes. Rather an important one, in view of the fact that you were the last person to see the late Dr. Bastow alive."
"You are forgetting the murderer, aren't you?" Wilton questioned with a wry smile.
"I should have said the last person known to have seen the late Dr. Bastow alive," the inspector corrected himself. "I shall be glad to hear your account of that interview if you please, Mr. Wilton."
"It was short and not particularly agreeable," Wilton told him in as calm and unemotional a tone as if he had no idea how terribly the statement might tell against him in the detective's eyes. "Dr. Bastow gave me notice."
"On what ground?" The inspector's tone was stern.
Wilton paused a moment before replying.
"I cannot tell you," he said at last.
The inspector made a note in the book in front of him.
"I should advise you to reconsider that answer, Mr. Wilton."
There was silence again for a minute, and then Wilton spoke slowly:
"Well, I expect I may as well make a clean breast of it. I had proposed to Miss Bastow, and the doctor objected. My dismissal followed as a matter of course."
"Hm!"
The detective glanced through his notes. That Wilton should be angry at the rejection of his advances to the doctor's daughter and also at his dismissal was natural enough, but his anger would scarcely carry him so far as the shooting of her father. He scratched the side of his nose reflectively with the end of his fountain pen.
"How did you leave the doctor?"
"Just as usual. He was sitting in the chair in which he was found—later. As I went towards the door he made a few technical remarks about a case I was attending. Afterwards I was called out, and was away about an hour."
"Then—you found the body, I think?"
"Yes. I forced the window and got into the room," Wilton assented. "But the parlourmaid, Taylor, had previously told us that she had looked through a hole in the curtain and had seen the doctor sitting in his chair in an odd, huddled-up position. So she may be termed the first who saw the body."
"Just so!" the inspector assented. "That hole or peep-hole between the curtain and the blind was a curious affair, Mr. Wilton. Did it strike you that it had been purposely arranged?"
"I don't know that it did at the time," Wilton said slowly. "But, looking back, it certainly seems odd that it should be there, and on that particular evening too. Was it arranged so that some one should watch that interview with the doctor which ended in his death? It almost looks as though it must have been so. And yet—"
"And yet—" the inspector prompted as Wilton paused.
"That would presuppose two people knowing what was going to happen, wouldn't it?" the young man finished.
The inspector drummed with his fingers on the table.
"It might. At any rate it would establish the fact that some one had a motive for watching the doctor and his visitor. What do you know of this woman—Taylor?"
Wilton looked surprised at the sudden question "Nothing at all. She was parlourmaid here. And quite remarkably good-looking, but I should hardly think I had spoken to her half a dozen times."
"Did you ever suspect that she was on friendly terms with Dr. Bastow?" the inspector rapped out.
"Certainly not!" Wilton answered with decision. "Dr. Bastow was not that sort of man at all—not the sort of man to be on friendly terms with one of his servants."
"That is, as far as you know," the inspector said with one of his sardonic smiles. "Nobody is that sort of man, as you call it, until he is found out, you know, Mr. Wilton. Cases have come under my observation in which the worst offenders in this respect have been absolutely unsuspected even by their own wives. You know that Taylor has bolted."
Wilton nodded.
"Miss Bastow told me so just now."
"And an innocent girl does not run away from a house where a crime has been committed," the inspector went on almost as if he were arguing the case out with himself.
"She might have other reasons—her own reasons for not wanting to be recognized," Wilton suggested.
The inspector stared at him. "You have foundation for this?"
Wilton shook his head.
"Not the least. But Miss Priestley hinted to me just now that she fancied she had seen Taylor in different circumstances."
"She did not say where?"
"No; she said she could not remember."
"Hm!" The inspector wrinkled up his nose into the semblance of corrugated iron. "I must have another word with Miss Priestley. In the meantime there are two questions I must put to you. First, did you notice anything unusual in the state of the room when you got in through the window?"
"Absolutely nothing. The room was precisely as I had seen it hundreds of times."
"What shoes were you wearing?"
Wilton looked surprised at the sudden change of subject.
"My ordinary indoor shoes. I was not expecting to go out again that evening."
"And you wore those shoes to go round to the garden door and to cross the grass to the window?"
"Certainly I did." Wilton smiled faintly. "I should hardly stop to change."
The inspector shut up his small notebook quickly and snapped the elastic round it.
"That is all, then, Mr. Wilton. For now, at any rate. I must have another word with Miss Priestley, though."
"I will tell her," Wilton volunteered. An errand to Miss Lavinia would probably mean a word or two with Hilary.
The inspector looked half inclined to object, but finally decided to say nothing.
Wilton went in search of Miss Priestley. He found her, as he expected, in the drawing-room with her niece, but his brow contracted as he saw Sir Felix Skrine sitting beside Hilary. Miss Lavinia did not look pleased at this second summons to the morning-room. She flounced off with the expressed intention of giving the policeman a piece of her mind. Without a second glance at Hilary and disregarding a piteous glance she cast at him, Wilton went back to the consulting-room.
Miss Lavinia entered the morning-room door.
"Well, Mr. Detective, what now?" she began unceremoniously. "Found something out that makes you think I shot my brother-in-law?"
