XXII
MR. CARRINGTON AND THE FISCAL
The card handed in to Mr. Simon Rattar contained merely the name "Mr. F. T. Carrington" and the address "Sports Club." Simon gazed at it cautiously and in silence for the better part of a minute, and when he glanced up at his head clerk to tell him that Mr. Carrington might be admitted, Mr. Ison was struck by the curious glint in his eye. It seemed to him to indicate that the fiscal was very wide awake at that moment; it struck him also that Mr. Rattar was not altogether surprised by the appearance of this visitor.
The agreeable stranger began by explaining very frankly that he thought of renting a place for next season where he could secure good fishing and a little shooting, and wondered if any of the properties Mr. Rattar was agent for would suit him. Simon grunted and waited for this overture to develop.
"What about Keldale House?" the sporting visitor suggested. "That's the place where the murder was committed, isn't it?" and then he laughed. "Your eye betrays you, Mr. Rattar!" said he.
The lawyer seemed to start ever so slightly.
"Indeed?" he murmured.
"Look here," said Carrington with a candid smile, "let's put our cards on the table. You know my business?"
"Are you a detective?" asked the lawyer.
Mr. Carrington smiled and nodded.
"I am; or rather I prefer to call myself a private enquiry agent. People expect so much of a detective, don't they?"
Simon grunted, but made no other comment.
"In a case like this," continued Carrington, "when one is called in weeks too late and the household broom and scrubbing brush and garden rake have removed most of the possible clues, and witnesses' recollections have developed into picturesque legends, it is better to rouse as few expectations as possible, since it is probably impossible to find anything out. However, in the capacity of a mere enquiry agent I have come to pick up anything I can. May I smoke?"
He asked in his usual easy going voice and with his usual candid smile, and then his eye was arrested by an inscription printed in capital letters, and hung in a handsome frame upon the office wall. It ran:
"MY THREE RULES OF LIFE,
1. I DO NOT SMOKE.
2. I LAY BY A THIRD OF MY INCOME.
3. I NEVER RIDE WHEN I CAN WALK."
Beneath these precepts appeared the lithographed signature of an eminent philanthropist, but it seemed reasonable to assume that they also formed the guiding maxims of Mr. Simon Rattar.
His visitor politely apologised for his question.
"I had not noticed this warning," said he.
"Smoke if you like. My clients sometimes do. I don't myself," said the lawyer.
His visitor thanked him, placed a cigarette in his amber holder, lit it, and let his eyes follow the smoke upwards.
Mr. Rattar, on his part, seemed in his closest, most taciturn humour. His grunt and his nod had, in fact, seldom formed a greater proportion of his conversation. He made no further comment at all now, but waited in silence for his visitor to proceed.
"Well," resumed Carrington, "the simple facts of the case are these. I have been engaged through a certain firm of London lawyers, whose name I am not permitted to mention, on behalf of a person whose name I don't know."
At this a flash of keen interest showed for an instant in Simon's eye; and then it became as cold as ever again.
"Indeed?" said he.
"I am allowed to incur expense," continued the other, "up to a certain figure, which is so handsome that it gives me practically a free hand, so far as that is concerned. On the other hand, the arrangement entails certain difficulties which I daresay you, Mr. Rattar, as a lawyer, and especially as a Procurator Fiscal accustomed to investigate cases of crime, will readily understand."
"Quite so; quite so," agreed Mr. Rattar, who seemed to be distinctly relaxing already from his guarded attitude.
"I arrived last night, put up at the Kings Arms—where I gathered beforehand that the local gossip could best be collected, and in the course of the evening I collected enough to hang at least two people; and in the course of a few more evenings I shall probably have enough to hang half a dozen—if one can believe, say, a twentieth of what one hears. This morning I strolled out to Keldale House and had a look at it from the road, and I learned that it was a large mansion standing among trees. That's all I have been able to do so far."
"Nothing more than that?"
Mr. Carrington seemed to have a singularly short memory.
"I think that's the lot," said he. "And what is more, it seems to me the sum total of all I am likely to do without a little assistance from somebody in possession of rather more authentic facts than my friend Miss Peterkin and her visitors."
"I quite understand," said the lawyer; and it was plain that his interest was now thoroughly enlisted.
"Well," continued Mr. Carrington, "I thought things over, and rightly or wrongly, I came to this decision. My employer, whoever he is, has made it an absolute condition that his name is not to be known. His reasons may have been the best imaginable, but it obviously made it impossible for me to get any information out of him. For my own reasons I always prefer to make my enquiries in these cases in the guise of an unsuspected outsider, whenever it is possible; and it happens to be particularly possible in this case, since nobody here knows me from Adam. But I must get facts—as distinguished from the Kings Arms' gossip, and how was I to get them without giving myself away? That was the problem, and I soon realised that it was insoluble. I saw I must confide in somebody, and so I came to the decision to confide in you."
Simon nodded and made a sound that seemed to indicate distinctly his opinion that Mr. Carrington had come to a sensible decision.
"You were the obvious person for several reasons," resumed Carrington. "In the first place you could pretty safely be regarded as above suspicion yourself—if you will pardon my associating even the word suspicion with a Procurator Fiscal." He smiled his most agreeable smile and the Fiscal allowed his features to relax sympathetically. "In the second place you know more about the case than anybody else. And in the third place, I gather that you are—if I may say so, a gentleman of unusual discretion."
Again he smiled pleasantly, and again Mr. Rattar's features relaxed.
"Finally," added Carrington, "I thought it long odds that you were either actually my employer or acting for him, and therefore I should be giving nothing away by telling you my business. And when I mentioned Keldale House and the murder I saw that I was right!"
He laughed, and Simon permitted himself to smile. Yet his answer was as cautious as ever.
"Well, Mr. Carrington?" said he.
"Well," said Carrington, "if you actually are my employer and we both lay our cards on the table, there's much to be gained, and—if I may say so—really nothing to be lost. I won't give you away if you won't give me."
The lawyer's nod seemed to imply emphatic assent, and the other went on:
"I'll keep you informed of everything I'm doing and anything I may happen to discover, and you can give me very valuable information as to what precisely is known already. Otherwise, of course, one could hardly exchange confidences so freely. Frankly then, you engaged me to come down here?"
Even then Simon's caution seemed to linger for an instant. The next he answered briefly but decidedly:
"Yes."
"Very well, now to business. I got a certain amount of literature on the case before I left town, and Miss Peterkin gave me some very valuable additions in the shape of the accounts in the local papers. Are there any facts known to you or the police beyond those I have read?"
Simon considered the question and then shook his head.
"None that I can think of, and I fear the local police will be able to add no information that can assist you."
"They are the usual not too intelligent country bobbies, I suppose?"
"Quite so," said Simon.
"In that case," asked Mr. Carrington, still in his easy voice, but with a quick turn of his eye-glass towards the lawyer, "why was no outside assistance called in at once?"
For a moment Simon Rattar's satisfaction with his visitor seemed to be diminished. He seemed, in fact, a little disconcerted, and his reply again became little more than a grunt.
"Quite satisfied with them," seemed to be the reading of his answer.
"Well," said Carrington, "no doubt you knew best, Mr. Rattar."
His eyes thoughtfully followed the smoke of his cigarette upwards for a moment, and then he said:
"That being so, my first step had better be to visit Keldale House and see whether it is still possible to find any small point the local professionals have overlooked."
Mr. Rattar seemed to disapprove of this.
"Nothing to discover," said he. "And they will know what you have come about."
Mr. Carrington smiled.
"I think, Mr. Rattar, that, on the whole, my appearance provokes no great amount of suspicion."
"Your appearance, no," admitted Simon, "but—"
"Well, if I go to Keldale armed with a card of introduction from you, to make enquiry about the shootings, I think I can undertake to turn the conversation on to other matters without exciting suspicion."
"Conversation with whom?" enquired the lawyer sceptically.
"I had thought of Mr. Bisset, the butler."
"Oh—" began Mr. Rattar with a note of surprise, and then pulled himself up.
"Yes," smiled Mr. Carrington, "I have picked up a little about the household. My friends of last night were exceedingly communicative—very gossipy indeed. I rather gather that omniscience is Mr. Bisset's foible, and that he is not averse from conversation."
The look in Simon's eye seemed to indicate that his respect for this easy going young man was increasing; though whether his liking for him was also increased thereby was not so manifest. His reply was again a mere grunt.
"Well, that can easily be arranged," said Carrington, "and it is obviously the first thing to do."
He blew a ring of smoke from his lips, skilfully sent a second ring in chase of it, and then turning his monocle again on the lawyer, enquired (though not in a tone that seemed to indicate and very acute interest in the question):
"Who do you think yourself murdered Sir Reginald Cromarty?"