Ravensdene Court Part 12

"I suppose you hear a good deal in this parlour of yours?" I suggested.

"Nights--yes," he said. "A murder's always a good subject of conversation. At first, those who come in here of an evening--regular set there, in from the village at the back of the cliffs--they could talk of naught else, starting first this and that theory. It's died down a good deal, to be sure--there's been naught new to start it afresh, on another tack--but there is some talk, even now."

"And what's the general opinion?" I inquired. "I suppose there is one?"

"Aye, well, I couldn't say that there's a general opinion," he answered. "There's a many opinions. And some queer notions, too!"

"Such as what?" I asked.

"Well," said he, with a laugh, as if he thought the suggestion ridiculous, "there's one that comes nearer being what you might call general than any of the others. There's a party of the older men that come here who're dead certain that Quick was murdered by a woman!"

"A woman!" I exclaimed. "Whatever makes them think that?"

"Those footmarks," answered Claigue. "You'll remember, Mr.

Middlebrook, that there were two sets of prints in the sand thereabouts. One was certainly Quick's--they fitted his boots. The other was very light--delicate, you might call 'em--made, without doubt, by some light-footed person. Well, some of the folk hereabouts went along to Kernwick Cove the day of the murder, and looked at those prints. They say the lighter ones were made by a woman."

I let my recollections go back to the morning on which I had found Quick lying dead on the patch of yellow sand.

"Of course," I said, reflectively, "those marks are gone, now."

"Gone? Aye!" exclaimed Claigue. "Long since. There's been a good many tides washed over that spot since this, Mr. Middlebrook. But they haven't washed out the fact that a man's life was let out there! And whether it was man or woman that stuck that knife into the poor fellow's shoulders, it'll come out, some day."

"I'm not so sure of that," said I. "There's a goodly percentage of unsolved mysteries of that kind."

"Well, I believe in the old saying," he declared. "Murder will out!

What I don't like is the notion that the murderer may be walking about this quarter, free, unsuspected. Why, I may ha' served him with a gla.s.s of beer! What's to prevent it? Murderers don't carry a label on their foreheads!"

"What do you think the police ought to do--or ought to have done?" I asked.

"I think they should ha' started working backward," he replied, with decision. "I read all I could lay hands on in the newspapers, and I came to the conclusion that there was a secret behind those two men.

Come! two brothers murdered on the same night--hundreds of miles apart! That's no common crime, Mr Middlebrook. Who were these two men--Noah and Salter Quick? What was their past history? That's what the police ought to ha' busied themselves with. If they lost or couldn't pick up the scent here, they should ha' tried far back. Go backward they should--if they want to go forward."

That was the second time I had heard that advice, and I returned to Ravensdene Court reflecting on it. Certainly it was sensible. Who, after all, were Noah and Salter Quick--what was their life-story. I was wondering how that could be brought to light, when, having dressed for dinner, and I was going downstairs, Mr. Cazalette's door opened and he quietly drew me inside his room.

"Middlebrook!" he whispered--though he had carefully shut the door--"you're a sensible lad, and I'll acquaint you with a matter.

This very morning, as I was taking my bit of a dip, my pocket-book was stolen out of the jacket that I'd left on the sh.o.r.e. Stolen, Middlebrook!"

"Was there anything of great value in it?" I asked.

"Aye, there was!" answered Mr. Cazalette. "There was that in it which, in my opinion, might be some sort of a clue to the real truth about yon man's murder!"

CHAPTER IX

THE ENLARGED PHOTOGRAPH

I was dimly conscious, in a vague, uncertain fas.h.i.+on, that Mr.

Cazalette was going to tell me secrets; that I was about to hear something which would explain his own somewhat mysterious doings on the morning of the murder; a half-excited, antic.i.p.ating curiosity rose in me. I think he saw it, for he signed to me to sit down in an easy chair close by his bed; he himself, a queer, odd figure in his quaint, old-fas.h.i.+oned clothes, perched himself on the edge of the bed.

"Sit you down, Middlebrook," he said. "We've some time yet before dinner, and I'm wanting to talk to you--in private, you'll bear in mind. There's things I know that I'm not willing--as yet--to tell to everybody. But I'll tell them to you, Middlebrook--for you're a sensible young fellow, and we'll take a bit of counsel together.

Aye--there was that in my pocket-book that might be--I'll not say positively that it was, but that it might be--a clue to the ident.i.ty of the man that murdered yon Salter Quick, and I'm sorry now that I've lost it and didn't take more care of it. But man! who'd ha' thought that I'd have my pocket-book stolen from under my very nose! And that's a convincing proof that there's uncommonly sharp and clever criminals around us in these parts, Middlebrook."

"You lost your pocket-book while you were bathing, Mr. Cazalette?" I asked, wishful to know all his details.

He turned on his bed, pointing to a venerable Norfork jacket which hung on a peg in a recess by the washstand. I knew it well enough: I had often seen him in it first thing of a morning.

"It's my custom," said he, "to array myself in that old coatie when I go for my bit dip, you see--it's thick and it's warm, and I've had it twenty years or more--good tweed it is, and homespun. And whenever I've gone out here of a morning, I've put my pocket-book in the inside pocket, and laid the coat itself and the rest o' my scanty attire on the bank there down at Kernwick Cove while I went in the water. And I did that very same thing this morning--and when I came to my clothes again, the pocket-book was gone!"

"You saw n.o.body about?" I suggested.

"n.o.body," said he. "But Lord, man, I know how easy it was to do the thing! You'll bear in mind that on the right hand side of that cove the plantation comes right down to the edge of the bit of cliff--well, a man lurking amongst the shrubs and undergrowth 'ud have nothing to do but reach his arm to the bank, draw my coatie to his nefarious self, and abstract my property. And by the time I was on dry land again, and wanting my garments, he'd be a quarter of a mile away!"

"And--the clue?" I asked.

He edged a little nearer to me, and dropped his voice still lower.

"I'm telling you," he said. "Now you'll let your mind go back to the morning whereon you found yon man Quick lying dead and murdered on the sand? And you'll remember that before ever you were down at the place, I'd been there before you. You'll wonder how it comes about that I didn't find what you found, but then, there's a many big rocks and boulders standing well up on that beach, and its very evident that the corpse was obscured from my view by one or other and maybe more of 'em. Anyway, I didn't find Salter Quick--but I did find something that maybe--mind, I'm saying maybe, Middlebrook--had to do with his murder."

"What, Mr. Cazalette?" I asked, though I knew well enough what it was.

I wanted him to say, and have done with it; his circ.u.mlocution was getting wearisome. But he was one of those old men who won't allow their cattle to be hurried, and he went on in his long-winded way.

"You'll be aware," he continued, "that there's a deal of gorse and bramble growing right down to the very edge of the coast thereabouts, Middlebrook. Scrub--that sort o' thing. The stuff that if it catches anything loose, anything protruding from say, the pocket of a garment, 'll lay hold and stick to it. Aye, well, on one of those bushes, gorse or bramble I cannot rightly say which, just within the entrance to the plantation, I saw, fluttering in the morning breeze that came sharp and refres.h.i.+ng off the face of the water, a handkerchief. And there was two sorts o' stains on it--caused in the one case by mud--the soft mud of the adjacent beach--and in the other by blood. A smear of blood--as if somebody had wiped blood off his fingers, you'll understand. But it was not that, not the blood, made me give my particular attention to the thing, which I'd picked off with my thumb and finger. It was that I saw at once that this was no common man's property, for there was a crest woven into one corner, and a monogram of initials underneath it, and the stuff itself was a sort that I'm unfamiliar with--it wasn't linen, though it looked like it, and it wasn't silk, for I'm well acquainted with that fabric--maybe it was a mixture of the two, but it had not been woven or made in any British factory: the thing, Middlebrook, was of foreign origin."

"What were the markings you speak of?" I asked.

"Well, I tell you there was a crest; anyhow it was a coronet, or that make of a thing," he answered. "Woven in one corner--I mean worked in by hand. And the letters beneath it were a V and a de--small, that last--and a C. Man! that handkerchief was the property of some man of quality! And the stains being wet--the mud-stains, at any rate, though the smear of blood was dry--I gathered that it had been but recently deposited, by accident, where I found it. I reckoned it up this way, d'ye see, Middlebrook--the man who'd left it there had used it on the beach--maybe he'd cut his toe, bathing, or something o' that sort, or likely a cut finger, gathering a sh.e.l.l or a fossil--and had thrust it carelessly into a side-pocket, for a thorn to catch hold of as he pa.s.sed. But there it was, and there I found it."

"And what did you do with it, Mr. Cazalette?" I inquired with seeming innocence.

"I'm telling you," he replied. "I had no knowledge, you're aware, of what lay behind me on the sands: I just thought it a queer thing that a man of quality's handkerchief should be there. And I slipped it among my towels, to bring along wi' me to the house here. But I'm whiles given to absent-mindedness, and not liking that I should put the blood-stained thing down on my dressing-table there and cause the maids to wonder, I thrust it into a hedge as I was pa.s.sing along, till I could go back and examine it at my leisure. And when I'd got myself dressed, I went back and took it, and put it in a stout envelope into my pocket--and then you came along, Middlebrook, with your story of the murder, and I saw then that before saying a word to anybody, I'd keep my own counsel and examine that thing more carefully. And man alive! I've no doubt whatever that the man who left the handkerchief behind him was the man who knifed Salter Quick."

"I gather, from all you've said, that the handkerchief was in the pocket-book you had stolen this morning?" I suggested.

"You're right in that," said he. "Oh, it was! Wrapped up in a bit of oiled paper, and in an envelope, sealed down and attested in my handwriting, Middlebrook--date and particulars of my discovery of it, all in order. Aye, and there was more. Letters and papers of my own, to be sure, and a trifle money--bank-notes. But there was yet another thing that, in view of all we know, may be a serious thing to have fall into the hands of ill-doers. A print, Middlebrook, of the enlarged photograph I got of the inside of the lid of yon dead man's tobacco-box!"

He regarded me with intense seriousness as he made this announcement, and not knowing exactly what to say, I remained silent.

"Aye!" he continued. "And it's my distinct and solemn belief that it's that the thief was after! Ye see, Middlebrook, it's been spoken of--not widely noised abroad, as you might say, but still spoken of, and things spread, that I was keenly interested in those marks, scratches, whatever they were, on the inside of that lid, and got the police to let me make a photograph, and it's my impression that there's somebody about who's been keenly anxious to know what results I obtained."

"You really think so?" said I. "Why--who could there be?"

"Aye, man, and who could there be, wi' a crest and monogram on his kerchief, that 'ud murder yon man the secret way he has?" he retorted, answering my incredulous look with one of triumph. "Tell me that, my laddie! I'm telling you, Middlebrook, that this was no common murder any more than the murder of the man's own brother down yonder at Saltash, which is a Cornish riverside place, and a good four or five hundred miles away, was a common, ordinary crime! Man! we're living in the very midst of a mystery--and that there's b.l.o.o.d.y-minded, aye, and b.l.o.o.d.y-handed men, maybe within our gates, but surely close by us, is as certain to me as that I'm looking at you!"

"I thought you believed that Salter Quick's murderer was miles away before ever Salter Quick was cold?" I observed.

"I did--and I've changed my mind," he answered. "I'm not thinking it any more, and all the less since I was robbed of my venerable pocket-book, with those two exhibits o' the crime in its wame. The murderer is about! and though he mayn't have thought to get his handkerchief, he may have hoped that he'd secure some result o' my labours in the photographic line."