Ravensdene Court Part 10

"Never saw t' fellow again, nor had a word with him," replied Beeman.

"He had his gla.s.s or two o' rum, and went away. But I reckon he was t'

man who was murdered."

"And where have you been, yourself, since the time you tell us about?"

asked the inspector.

"Right away across country," answered Beeman readily. "I went across to Chillingham and Wooler, then forrard to some farms i' t' Cheviots, and back by Alnham and Whittingham to Alnwick. And then I heard all about this affair, and so I thought good to come and tell you what bit I knew."

"I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Beeman," said the inspector. "You've cleared up something, at any rate. Are you going to stay longer in the neighbourhood?"

"I shall be here--leastways, at Alnwick yonder, at t' Temp'rance--for two or three days yet, while I've collected some sheep together 'at I've bowt for our maister, on one farm and another," replied Beeman.

"Then I shall be away. But if you ever want me, at t' 'Sizes, or wot o' that sort, my directions is James Beeman, foreman to Mr. Thomas Dimbleby, Cross-houses Manor, York."

When this candid and direct person had gone, the inspector looked at Miss Raven and me with glances that indicated a good deal.

"That settles one point and seems to establish another," he remarked significantly. "Salter Quick was not murdered by somebody who had come into these parts on the same errand as himself. He was murdered by somebody who was--here already!"

"And who met him?" I suggested.

"And who met him," a.s.sented the inspector. "And now I'm more anxious than ever to know if there is anything in that tobacco-box theory of Mr. Cazalette's. Couldn't you young people cajole Mr. Cazalette into telling you a little? Surely he would oblige you, Miss Raven?"

"There are moments when Mr. Cazalette is approachable," replied Miss Raven. "There are others at which I should as soon think of asking a question of the Sphinx."

"Wait!" said I. "Mr. Cazalette, I firmly believe, knows something. And now--you know more than you did. One mystery has gone by the board."

"It leaves the main one all the blacker," answered the inspector.

"Who, of all the folk in these parts, is one to suspect? Yet--it would seem that Salter Quick found somebody here to whom his presence was so decidedly unwelcome that there was nothing for it but--swift and certain death! Why? Well--death ensures silence."

Miss Raven and I took our leave for the second time. We walked some distance from the police-station before exchanging a word: I do not know what she was thinking of; as for myself, I was speculating on the change in my opinion brought about by the rough-and-ready statement of the brusque Yorks.h.i.+reman. For until then I had firmly believed that the man who had accosted our friend of the Mariner's Joy, Jim Gelthwaite, the drover, was the man who had murdered Salter Quick. My notion was that this man, whoever he was, had foregathered somewhere with Quick, that they were known to each other, and had a common object, and that he had knifed Quick for purposes of his own. And now that idea was exploded, and so far as I could see, the search for the real a.s.sa.s.sin was yet to begin.

Suddenly Miss Raven spoke.

"I suppose it's scarcely possible that the murderer was present at that inquest?" she asked, half-timidly, as if afraid of my ridiculing her suggestion.

"Quite possible," said I. "The place was packed to the doors with all sorts of people. But why?"

"I thought perhaps that he might have contrived to abstract that tobacco-box, knowing that as long as it was in the hands of the police there might be some clue to his ident.i.ty," she suggested.

"Good notion!" I replied. "But there's just one thing against it. If the murderer had known that, if he felt that, he'd have secured the box when he searched Quick's clothing, as he undoubtedly did."

"Of course!" she admitted. "I ought to have thought of that. But there are such a lot of things to think of in connection with this case--threads interwoven with each other."

"You've been thinking much about it?" I asked.

She made no reply for a moment, and I waited, wondering.

"I don't think it's a very comfortable thing to know that one's had a particularly brutal murder at one's very door and that, for all one knows, the murderer may still be close at hand," she said at last.

"There's such a disagreeable feeling of uneasiness about this affair.

I know that Uncle Francis is most awfully upset by it."

I looked at her in some surprise. I had not seen any marked signs of concern in Mr. Raven.

"I hadn't observed that," I said.

"Perhaps not," she answered. "But I know him better. He's an unusually nervous man. Do you know that since this happened he's taken to going round the house every night, examining doors and windows?--And--he's begun to carry a revolver."

The last statement made me think. Why should Mr. Raven expect--or, if not expect, be afraid of, any attack on himself? But before I could make any comment on my companion's information, my attention to the subject was diverted. All that afternoon the weather had been threatening to break--there was thunder about. And now, with startling suddenness, a flash of lightning was followed by a sharp crack, and that on the instant by a heavy downpour of rain. I glanced at Miss Raven's light dress--early spring though it was, the weather had been warm for more than a week, and she had come out in things that would be soaked through in a moment. But just then we were close to an old red-brick house, which stood but a yard or two back from the road, and was divided from it by nothing but a strip of garden. It had a deep doorway, and without ceremony, I pushed open the little gate in front, and drew Miss Raven within its shelter. We had not stood there many seconds, our back to the door (which I never heard opened), when a soft mellifluous voice sounded close to my startled ear.

"Will you not step inside and shelter from the storm?"

Twisting round sharply, I found myself staring at the slit-like eyes and old parchment-hued face of a smiling Chinaman.

CHAPTER VIII

WAS IT A WOMAN?

Had Miss Raven and I suddenly been caught up out of that little coast village and transported to the far East on a magic carpet, to be set down in the twinkling of an eye on some Oriental threshold, we could scarcely have been more surprised than we were at the sight of that bland, smiling countenance. For the moment I was at a loss to think who and what the man could be; he was in the dress of his own country, a neat, close-fitting, high-b.u.t.toned blue jacket; there was a little cap on his head, and a pigtail dependent from behind it--I was not sufficiently acquainted with Chinese costumes to gather any idea of his rank or position from these things--for aught I knew to the contrary, he might be a mandarin who, for some extraordinary reason, had found his way to this out-of-the-world spot. And my answer to his courteous invitation doubtless sounded confused and awkward.

"Oh, thank you," I said, "pray don't let us put you to any trouble. If we may just stand under your porch a moment--"

He stood a little aside, waving us politely into the hall behind him.

"Dr. Lorrimore would be very angry with me if I allowed a lady and gentleman to stand in his door and did not invite them into his house," he said, in the same even, mellifluous tones. "Please to enter."

"Oh, is this Dr. Lorrimore's?" I said. "Thank you--we'll come in. Is Dr. Lorrimore at home?"

"Presently," he answered. "He is in the village."

He closed the door as we entered, pa.s.sed us with a bow, preceded us along the hall, and threw open the door of a room which looked out on a trim garden at the rear of the house. Still smiling and bland he invited us to be seated, and then, with another bow, left the room, apparently walking on velvet. Miss Raven and I glanced at each other.

"So Dr. Lorrimore has a Chinese man servant?" she said.

"How--picturesque!"

"Um!" I muttered.

She gave me a questioning, half-amused glance, and dropped her voice.

"Don't you like--Easterns?" she whispered.

"I like 'em in the East," I replied. "In Northumberland they don't--shall we say they don't fit in with the landscape."

"I think he fits in--here," she retorted, looking round. "This is a bit Oriental."

She was right in that. The room into which we had been ushered was certainly suggestive of what one had heard of India. There were fine Indian rugs on the floor; ivories and bra.s.ses in the cabinets; the curtains were of fabric that could only have come out of some Eastern bazaar; there was a faint, curious scent of sandal-wood and of dried rose-leaves. And on the mantelpiece, where, in English households, a marble clock generally stands, reposed a peculiarly ugly Hindu G.o.d, cross-legged, hideous of form, whose baleful eyes seemed to follow all our movements.