CHAPTER XII
MR. FLEXEN sat pondering this question of a third person for a good twenty minutes.
It could not be Hutchings. There would be no reason to shield Hutchings unless they had instigated or employed him to commit the murder, and that was out of the question. He was not sure, indeed, that Hutchings was not the murderer; the snores and the knife were as likely to have excited the murderous impulse in him as in them. He was quite sure that if Dr. Thornhill had been able to swear that the wound was not self-inflicted, he could have secured the conviction of Hutchings. But it was incredible that Lady Loudwater or Colonel Grey had employed him to commit the murder. No; if they were shielding a third person, it must be the mysterious, unknown woman who had come with such swift secrecy and so wholly disappeared.
It grew clearer and clearer that there most probably lay that solution of the problem. If that woman herself had not murdered Lord Loudwater, as seemed most likely, she might very well give him the clue for which he was groping. He must find her, and, of course, sooner or later he would find her. But the sooner he found her, the sooner would the problem be solved and his work done. Till he found her he would not find its solution.
It still seemed to him probable that somewhere among Lord Loudwater's papers there was information which would lead to her discovery, and he went into the library to confer again with Mr. Carrington on the matter. He found him discussing the arrangements for tomorrow's funeral with Mrs. Carruthers and Wilkins.
When they had gone he said: "Did you come across any information about that mysterious woman in the rest of the papers?"
"Not a word," said Mr. Carrington.
"I've been thinking that you might come across traces of her in his pass-books—payments or an allowance."
"I thought of that. But there's only one passbook, the one in use. Lord Loudwater doesn't seem to have kept them after they were filled. And Manley knows all about this one; he wrote out every cheque in it for Loudwater, and he is quite sure that there were no cheques of any size for a woman among them."
"That's disappointing," said Mr. Flexen. "What about the cheques to 'Self'? Are there any large ones among them?"
"No. They're all on the small side—distinctly on the small side—cheques for ten pounds—and very few of them."
"It is queer that it should be so difficult to find any information about a woman who played such an important part in his life," said Mr. Flexen gloomily.
"It's not so very uncommon," said the lawyer.
"Well, let's hope that the advertisement she'll get from my newspaper friends will bring her to light," said Mr. Flexen.
"It would be a pleasant surprise to me to find them serving some useful purpose," said Mr. Carrington grimly.
Mr. Flexen laughed and said: "You're prejudiced. It's about time to dress for dinner."
Mr. Carrington rose with alacrity and said anxiously, "I hope to goodness Loudwater didn't quarrel with his chef!"
"I've no reason to think so. The food's excellent," said Mr. Flexen.
Mr. Manley joined them at dinner, wearing his best air of a discreet and indulgent man of the world, and confident of making himself valued. He was in very good spirits, for he had persuaded Helena to marry him that day month, and was rejoicing in his success. He did not tell Mr. Flexen, or Mr. Carrington, of his good fortune. He felt that it would hardly interest them, since neither of them knew Helena or was intimate with himself. But, inspired by this success, he took the lead in the conversation, and showed himself inclined to be somewhat patronizing to two men outside the sphere of imaginative literature.
It was Mr. Flexen who broached the subject of the murder.
After they had talked of the usual topics for a while, he said: "By the way, Manley, did you hear Lord Loudwater snore after Hutchings went into the library, or before?"
"So you know that I saw Hutchings in the hall that night?" said Mr. Manley. "It's wonderful how you find things out. I didn't tell you, and I should have thought that I was the only person awake in the front part of the Castle. I suppose that some one saw him getting his cigarettes from the butler's pantry."
"So that was the reason he gave you for being in the Castle," said Mr. Flexen. "Well, was it after or before you spoke to him that you heard Lord Loudwater snore?"
Mr. Manley hesitated, thinking; then he said: "I can't remember at the moment. You see, I was downstairs some little time. I found an evening paper in the dining-room and looked through it there. I might have heard him from there."
"You can't remember?" said Mr. Flexen in a tone of disappointment.
"Not at the moment," said Mr. Manley. "Is it important?"
"Yes; very important. It would probably help me to fix the time of Lord Loudwater's death."
"I see. A lot may turn on that," said Mr. Manley thoughtfully.
"Yes. You can see how immensely it helps to have a fact like that fixed," said Mr. Flexen.
"Yes: of course," said Mr. Manley. "Well, I must try to remember. I daresay I shall, if I keep the fact in my mind gently, and do not try to wrench the recollection out of it. You know how hard it is to remember a thing, if it hasn't caught your attention fairly when it happened."
"Yes," said Mr. Flexen. "But I hope to goodness you'll remember it quickly. It may be of the greatest use to me."
"Ah, yes; I must," said Mr. Manley, giving him a queer look.
"I was forgetting," said Mr. Flexen, understanding the thought behind the queer look. "You'd hardly believe it, Mr. Carrington, but Mr. Manley told me at the very beginning of this business that he was not going to help in any way to discover the murderer of Lord Loudwater, because he considered that murderer a benefactor of society."
"But I never heard of such a thing!" cried the lawyer in a tone of astonished disapproval. "Such a course might be possible in the case of some minor crime, or in a person intimately connected with the criminal in the case of a major crime. But for an outsider to pursue such a course in the case of a murder is unheard of—absolutely unheard of."
"I daresay it isn't common," said Mr. Manley in a tone of modest satisfaction. "But I am modern; I claim the right of private judgment in all matters of morality."
"Oh, that won't do—that won't do at all!" cried the shocked lawyer. "There would be hopeless confusion—in fact, if everybody did that, the law might easily become a dead letter—absolutely a dead letter."
"But there's no fear of everybody doing anything of the kind. The ruck of men have no private judgment to claim the right of. They take whatever's given them in the way of morals by their pastors and masters. Only exceptional people have ideas of their own to carry out; and there are not enough exceptional people to make much difference," said Mr. Manley calmly.
"But, all the same, such principles are subversive of society—absolutely subversive of society," said Mr. Carrington warmly, and his square, massive face was growing redder.
"I daresay," said Mr. Manley amiably. "But if any one chooses to have them, and act on them, what are you going to do about it? For example, if I happened to know who had murdered Lord Loudwater and did not choose to tell, how could you make me?"
"If there were many people with such principles about, society would soon find out a way of protecting itself," said the lawyer, in the accents of one whose tenderest sensibilities are being outraged.
"It would have to have recourse to torture then," said Mr. Manley cheerfully.
"But let me remind you that it is a crime to be an accessory before, or after, the fact to murder," said the lawyer in a tone of some triumph.
"Oh, I'm not going as far as that," said Mr. Manley. "A man might very well approve of a murder without being willing to further it."
Mr. Flexen laughed and said: "I understand Mr. Manley's point of view. Sometimes I have felt inclined to be judge as well as investigator—especially in the East."
"And you followed your inclination," said Mr. Manley with amiable certainty.
"Perhaps—perhaps not," said Mr. Flexen, smiling at him.
"The war has upset everything. I never heard such ideas before the war," grumbled the lawyer.
There was a silence as Holloway brought in the coffee and cigars.
When he had gone, Mr. Flexen said in an almost fretful tone: "It's an extraordinary thing that Lord Loudwater kept so few papers."
"I don't know," said Mr. Manley carelessly. "During the six months I've been here we were never stuck for want of a paper. He seemed to me to have kept all that were necessary."
"It's the destroying of his pass-books that seems so odd to me," said the lawyer. "A man must often want to know how he spent his money in a given year."
"I'm sure I never want to," said Mr. Manley. "And certainly pass-books are unattractive-looking objects to have about."
"All the same, they might have proved very useful in this case," said Mr. Flexen. "Of course, they wouldn't tell us anything we shall not find out eventually. But they might have saved us a lot of time and trouble. They might put us on to the track of another firm of lawyers who did certain business for Lord Loudwater."
"Well, no one but Mr. Carrington's firm did any business for him during the last six months," said Mr. Manley, rising. "I feel inclined to take advantage of the moonlight and go for a stroll. So I will leave you to go on working on the murder. Good-bye for the present."
He sauntered out of the room, and when the door closed behind him, the lawyer said earnestly: "I do hate a crank."
The words came from his heart.
"Oh, I don't think he's a crank," said Mr. Flexen in an indulgent tone. "He's too intelligent; that's all."
"There's nothing so dangerous as too much intelligence. It's always a nuisance to other people," said the lawyer. "Do you think he really knows anything?"
"He knows something—nothing of real importance, I think," said Mr. Flexen. "But, as I expect you've noticed, he likes to feel himself of importance. And whatever knowledge he has helps him to feel important. It's a harmless hobby. By the way, is there anything in the way of insanity in Lady Loudwater's family?"
"No, I never heard of any, and I should have been almost certain to hear if there were any," said the lawyer in some surprise.
"That's all right," said Mr. Flexen.
"By the way, how did you get on with the newspaper men?" said the lawyer.
"I put them in the way of making themselves very useful to me, and, at the same time, I gave them exactly the kind of thing they wanted. I think, too, that when they've run the story I gave them for all it's worth, they'll very likely drop the case—unless, that is, we've really got it cleared up. I was careful to point out to them that the verdict of the coroner's jury was a piece of pig-headed idiocy, and they'll see the unlikelihood of securing a conviction for murder with the medical evidence as it is, unless we have an absolutely clear case."
"But, all the same, there's going to be a tremendous fuss in the papers," said Mr. Carrington, in the tone of dissatisfaction of the lawyer who is always doing his best to keep tremendous fusses out of the papers.
"Oh, yes. That was necessary. It's out of that fuss that I hope to get the evidence which will settle once and for all, in my mind at any rate, the question whether Lord Loudwater was murdered or not."
"But surely you haven't any doubt about that?" said the lawyer sharply.
"Just a trifle, and I may as well get rid of it," said Mr. Flexen.
Mr. Manley took his hat and stick and went leisurely out of the front door of the Castle. He paused on the steps for half a minute to admire the moonlit night and murmur a few lines from Keats. Then he strolled down the drive whistling the tune of an American coon song. But presently the whistle died on his lips as he considered Mr. Flexen's keen desire to discover the other firm of lawyers who had done business for Lord Loudwater. He could not but think, when he put this keenness of Mr. Flexen beside Helena's strange anxiety, that she had done something of which she had not told him, something that might have drawn suspicion on her. He did not see what she could have done; but there it was. He had a feeling, an intuition that it was she whom Mr. Flexen was seeking, and he prided himself on his intuition. Well, the longer they were finding Shepherd, the lawyer who had handled the business of her allowance, the better he would be pleased. He had certainly done his best to block their way. At the same time, they might at any moment learn who he was. It was fortunate, therefore, that Shepherd had a job in Mesopotamia, and that his business was closed down for the present. If they did learn who he was, they would still be a long while before they obtained any information about Helena from him. Mr. Manley's keen desire was that the first excitement about the murder should have died down before they did get it. He was a firm believer in the soothing effect of time. The discovery of Helena's allowance, if it were made now, might cause her considerable annoyance, if not actual trouble. Coming in six weeks' time, or even a month's time, it would be far less likely to make that trouble.
He wondered what it could be that she had done to bring herself under suspicion. Remembering what she had said of her determination to discuss the halving of her allowance with the dead man, and her remark that she had such a knowledge of his habits that she could make sure of having an interview with him to discuss it, it seemed not unlikely that she had gone to see him on the very night of his murder, and that some one had seen her. If it were so, he hoped that she would tell him, so that they might together devise some way of preventing harm coming from the accident that the interview had occurred at such an unfortunate hour. He felt sure that he would be able to devise such a way. He never blinked the fact of his extreme ingenuity.
He found her strolling in her garden with the anxious frown which had awakened his uneasiness, still on her brow. Her face grew brighter at the sight of him, and presently he had smoothed the frown quite away. Again he realized that the murder of Lord Loudwater had had a softening effect on her. Before it they had been much more on equality; now she rather clung to him. He found it pleasing, much more the natural attitude of a woman towards a man of his imagination and knowledge of life. He was properly gracious and protective with her.
The next morning the Daily Wire opened his eyes and confirmed his apprehensions. The murder of a nobleman is an uncommon occurrence, and the editor of that paper showed every intention of making the most of it. The visit of the unknown woman to Lord Loudwater and their quarrel, treated with the nervous picturesqueness of which Mr. Gregg was so famous a master, formed the main and interesting part of the article. When he came to the end of it, Mr. Manley whistled ruefully. He had no difficulty whatever in picturing to himself the indignant and violent wrath of Helena, and he could not conceive for a moment that Lord Loudwater had been able to withstand it. Of course, he would be violent, too, but with a much less impressive violence.
Lord Loudwater had been lavish in the matter of newspapers; he was a rich man, and they had been his only reading. Mr. Manley read the report of the inquest in all the chief London dailies, and found in the Daily Planet another nervously picturesque article on the visit of the mysterious woman from the nervously picturesque pen of Mr. Douglas.
Here was certainly a pretty kettle of fish. He could not doubt that the woman was Helena. It explained Flexen's questioning him whether he had any knowledge of an entanglement between Lord Loudwater and a woman, and Flexen's keen desire to find some other firm of lawyers who might have been called in to deal with such an entanglement. But he could not for a moment bring himself to believe that there could have ever been any need for Helena to have recourse to the knife. He could not see Lord Loudwater resisting her when she became really angry; he must have given way. None the less, he did not underestimate the awkwardness, the danger even, of her having paid that visit and had that quarrel at such an unfortunate hour.
He had matter enough for earnest thought during the funeral. It was a large funeral, though there were not many funeral guests. Five ladies, an aunt and four cousins, of Lord Loudwater's own generation, came down from London. The younger generation was either on its way back from the war, or too busy with its work to find the time to attend the funeral of a distant relation, whom, if they had chanced to meet him, they neither liked nor respected. But there was a show of carriages from all the big houses within a radius of nine miles, which more than made up for the fewness of the guests. Also, there was a crowd of middle- and lower-class spectators who considered the funeral of a murdered nobleman a spectacle indeed worth attending. It was composed of women, children, old men, and a few wounded private soldiers.
Olivia attended the funeral, wearing a composed but rather pathetic air, owing to the fact that her brow was most of the time knitted in a pondering, troubled frown. Lady Croxley, Lord Loudwater's aged aunt, rode with her in the first coach. She was a loquacious soul, and whiled away the journey to and from the church, which is over a mile from the Castle, with a panegyric on her dead nephew, and an astonished dissertation on the strange fact that Olivia had not had a woman with her during this sad time. She ascribed her abstinence from this stimulant to her desire to be alone with her grief. Olivia encouraged her harmless babble by a vague murmur at the right points, and continued to look pathetic. It was all her aunt by marriage needed, and it left Olivia free to think her own thoughts. She gave but few of them to her dead husband; the living claimed her attention.
Mr. Manley wore an air of gloom far deeper than his sense of the fitness of things would in the ordinary course of events have demanded. It was the result of the nervously picturesque English which had flowed with such ease from the forceful pens of Mr. Douglas and Mr. Gregg. Mr. Carrington, who rode with him, and from attending the funerals of many clients had acquired as good a funeral air as any man in his profession, found his gloom exaggerated. He was all the more scandalized, therefore, when, as they were nearing the Castle, Mr. Manley suddenly cried, "By Jove!" and rubbed his hands together with a face uncommonly radiant.
He had had the cheering thought that he had the Loudwater case, if ever it should come to a trial, wholly in his hands. He had but to remember having heard Lord Loudwater snore at, say, a few minutes to twelve, to break it down. He did not conceive that he would encounter any difficulty in remembering that if it should be necessary.
The solemnity of the funeral and Mr. Carrington's conversation in the coach—he had talked about the weather—had not weakened his resolve that, if he could help it, no one should swing for the murder.
This realization of his position of vantage made him eager to go to Helena to set her mind at rest, should she, as he thought most likely, be greatly troubled by the fact that her untimely visit to the murdered man was known. But he had to lunch at the Castle with the funeral guests. They were interested beyond measure in the murder and full of questions. He talked to them with a darkly mysterious air, and made a deep impression of discreet sagacity on their simple minds. He observed that Olivia appeared to have been afflicted more deeply by the funeral than he had expected. She looked harassed and seemed to find the lunch rather a strain. He observed also that she did not, as did her guests, who were so slightly acquainted with him, pay any tribute to the character of her dead husband.
Mr. Flexen was not lunching with them. He had spent an expectant morning waiting for the local effects of the story in the Wire and Planet, and in having that story spread far and wide by Inspector Perkins and his two men among the villagers, who only saw a paper in the public-houses of the neighbourhood on a Sunday. He hoped, if it had been a local affair, to have information about it in the course of the day. Up to lunchtime the newspaper advertisement of the mysterious woman had proved as fruitless as the earlier private inquiries. But he remained hopeful.
It was past three before Mr. Manley escaped from the funeral guests and betook himself at a brisk pace to Helena's house. As he went he made up his mind that the quality most fitting the occasion was discretion. He had better not let it appear that he was sure that she was the mysterious woman of the Daily Wire. He must make his announcement that, in the event of any one being brought to trial for the murder of Lord Loudwater, his evidence could break down any case for the prosecution, and that he would see that it did break it down, appear as casual as possible. But, at the same time, he must make it quite clear to her that he could secure her safety. He felt that though she might think his firm resolve that no one should swing for the murder quixotic, she would perceive that it was only in keeping with his generous nature.
He had expected to find her much more disturbed by the nervously picturesque articles of Mr. Gregg and Mr. Douglas than she appeared. Indeed, she seemed to him much less under a strain, much less nervous than she had been the night before. None the less, he was careful to reassure her wholly by the announcement of his discovery of the important nature of the evidence he could give, before he said anything about those articles. When he did tell her that he could break down any case for the prosecution, she did not at once confess that she was the woman of whose visit to Lord Loudwater those stories told; they did not even discuss the question, which had seemed so important to the Daily Wire, who that woman was. They contented themselves with discussing the question who could have seen her. He admired her spirit in not telling him, her readiness to forgo his comfort and support before the absolute need for them was upon her. Her force of character was what he most admired in her, and this was a striking example of it. His own character, he knew, was rather subtile and delicate than strong. He was more than ever alive to the advantage of having her to lean upon in the difficult career that lay before him.
Mr. Flexen was disappointed that the advertisement of the mysterious woman in the Wire and the Planet brought no information about her during the morning. After lunch Mr. Carrington returned to London. At half-past three Mr. Flexen telegraphed to Scotland Yard to ask if any one had given them information about the woman he was seeking. No one had. Then he realized that he was unreasonably impatient. Whoever had the information would probably think the matter over, and perhaps confer with friends before coming forward. In the meantime, he would make inquiries of James Hutchings.
He drove to the gamekeeper's cottage to find James Hutchings sitting on a chair outside it and reading the Planet. He perceived that he looked puzzled. Also, he perceived that he still wore a strained, hunted air, more strained and hunted by far than at their last talk.
He walked briskly up to him and said: "Good afternoon. I see that you're reading the story of Lord Loudwater's murder in the Planet. It occurred to me that you might very likely be able to tell me who the lady who visited Lord Loudwater on the night of his murder was. At any rate, you can probably make a guess at who she was."
Hutchings shook his head and said gloomily: "No, sir, I can't. I don't know who it was and I can't guess. I wish I could. I'd tell you like a shot."
"That's odd," said Mr. Flexen, again disappointed. "I should have thought it impossible for your master to have been on intimate terms with a lady without your coming to hear of it. You've always been his butler."
"Yes, sir. But this is the kind of thing as a valet gets to know about more than a butler—letters left about, or in pockets, you know, sir. But his lordship never could keep a valet long enough for him to learn anything. He was worse with valets than with any one."
"I see," said Mr. Flexen in a vexed tone. "But still, I should have thought you'd have heard something from some one, even if the matter had not come under your own eyes. Gossip moves pretty widely about the countryside."
"Oh, this didn't happen in the country, sir—not in this part of the country, anyhow. It must have been a London woman," said Hutchings with conviction. "If she'd lived about here, I must have heard about it."
"It was a lady, you must know. The papers do not bring that fact out. My informant is quite sure that it was a lady," said Mr. Flexen.
"That's no 'elp, sir," said Hutchings despondently. "She must have come down by train and gone away by train."
"She would have probably been noticed at the station. But she wasn't. Besides, she could not have walked back to the station in time to catch the last train. I'm sure of it."
"Then she must have come in a car, sir."
"That is always possible," said Mr. Flexen.
There was a pause.
Then Hutchings burst out: "You may depend on it that she did it, sir. There isn't a shadow of a doubt. You get her and you'll get the murderess."
He spoke with the feverish, unbalanced vehemence of a man whose nerves are on edge.
"You think so, do you?" said Mr. Flexen.
"I'm sure of it—dead certain," cried Hutchings.
"It's a long way from visiting a gentleman late at night and quarrelling with him to murdering him," said Mr. Flexen.
"And she went it. You mark my words, sir. She went it. I don't say that she came to do it. But she saw that knife lying handy on the library table and she did it," said Hutchings with the same vehemence.
"Any one who passed through the library would see that knife," said Mr. Flexen carelessly, but his eyes were very keen on Hutchings' face.
Hutchings was pale, and he went paler. He tried to stammer something, but his voice died in his throat.
"Well, I'm sorry you can't give me any information about this lady. Good afternoon," said Mr. Flexen, and he turned on his heel and went back to the car.
He was impressed by Hutchings' air and manner. Of course, believing himself to be suspected, the man was under a strain. But would the strain on him be so heavy as it plainly was, if he knew himself to be innocent? And then his eagerness to fasten the crime on the mysterious woman. It had been astonishingly intense, almost hysterical.
When he reached the Castle he found Inspector Perkins awaiting him with a small package which had come by special messenger from Scotland Yard. It contained enlarged photographs of the fingerprints on the handle of the knife. They were all curiously blurred.
The murderer had worn a glove.