Ravensdene Court Part 5

"Well, Tarver," I said, "the only thing to be done is that I must go back to the house and tell Mr. Raven what's happened, and send for the police. Do you stay here--and if anybody comes along, be very careful to keep them off those footmarks."

"Not likely that there'll be anybody, sir," he remarked. "As lonely a bit of coast, this, as there is, hereabouts. What beats me," he added, "is--what was he--and the man as did it--doing, here? There's naught to come here for. And--it must ha' happened in the night, judging by the looks of him."

"The whole thing's a profound mystery," I answered. "We shall hear a lot more of it."

I left him standing by the dead man and went hurriedly away towards Ravensdene Court. Glancing at my watch as I pa.s.sed through the belt of pine, I saw that it was already getting on to nine o'clock and breakfast time. But this news of mine would have to be told: this was no time for waiting or for ceremony. I must get Mr. Raven aside, at once, and we must send for the nearest police officer, and--

Just then, fifty yards in front of me, I saw Mr. Cazalette vanis.h.i.+ng round the corner of the long yew-hedge, at the end nearest to the house. So--he had evidently been back to the place whereat he had hidden the stained linen, whatever it was? Coming up to that place a moment later, and making sure that I was not observed, I looked in amongst the twigs and foliage. The thing was gone.

This deepened the growing mystery more than ever. I began, against my will, to piece things together. Mr. Cazalette, returning from the beach, hides a blood-stained rag--I, going to the beach, find a murdered man--coming back, I ascertain that Mr. Cazalette has already removed what he had previously hidden. What connection was there--if any at all--between Mr. Cazalette's actions and my discovery? To say the least of it, the whole thing was queer, strange, and even suspicious.

Then I caught sight of Mr. Cazalette again. He was on the terrace, in front of the house, with Mr. Raven--they were strolling up and down, before the open window of the morning room, chatting. And I was thankful that Miss Raven was not with them, and that I saw no sign of her near presence.

I determined to tell my gruesome news straight out--Mr. Raven, I felt sure, was not the man to be startled by tidings of sudden death, and I wanted, of set purpose, to see how his companion would take the announcement. So, as I walked up the steps of the terrace, I loudly called my host's name. He turned, saw from my expression that something of moment had happened, and hurried toward me, Cazalette trotting in his rear. I gave a warning look in in the direction of the house and its open windows.

"I don't want to alarm Miss Raven," I said in a low voice, which I purposely kept as matter-of-fact as possible. "Something has happened.

You know the man I was telling you of last night--Salter Quick? I found his dead body, half-an-hour ago, on your beach. He has been murdered--stabbed to the heart. Your gamekeeper, Tarver, is with him.

Had you not better send for the police?"

I carefully watched both men as I broke the news. Its effect upon them was different in both cases. Mr. Raven started a little; exclaimed a little: he was more wonder-struck than horrified. But Mr. Cazalette's mask-like countenance remained immobile; only, a gleam of sudden, almost pleased interest showed itself in his black, shrewd eyes.

"Aye?" he exclaimed. "So you found your man dead and murdered, Middlebrook? Well, now, that's the very end that I was thinking the fellow would come to! Not that I fancied it would be so soon, nor so close at hand. On one's own doorstep so to speak. Interesting! Very interesting!"

I was too much taken aback by his callousness to make any observation on these sentiments; instead, I looked at Mr. Raven. He was evidently too much surprised just then to pay any attention to his elder guest: he motioned me to follow him.

"Come with me to the telephone," he said. "Dear, dear, what a very sad thing. Of course, the poor fellow has been murdered for his money? You said he'd a lot of gold on him."

"It's not been for robbery," I answered. "His money and his watch are untouched. There's more in it than that."

He stared at me as if failing to comprehend.

"Some mystery?" he suggested.

"A very deep and lurid one, I think," said I. "Get the police out as quickly as possible, and bid them bring a doctor."

"They'll bring their own police-surgeon," he remarked, "but we have a medical man closer at hand. I'll ring him up, too. Yet--what can they do?"

"Nothing--for him," I replied. "But they may be able to tell us at what hour the thing took place. And that's important."

When we left the telephone we went to the morning-room, to get a mouthful of food before going down to the beach. Miss Raven was there--so was Cazalette. I saw at once that he had told her the news.

She was sitting behind her tea and coffee things, staring at him: he, on his part, a cup of tea in one hand, a dry biscuit in the other, was marching up and down the room sipping and munching, and holding forth, in didactic fas.h.i.+on, on crime and detection. Miss Raven gave me a glance as I slipped into a place at her side.

"You found this poor man?" she whispered. "How dreadful for you!"

"For him, too--and far more so," I said. "I didn't want you to know until--later. Mr. Cazalette oughtn't to have told you."

She arched her eyebrows in the direction of the odd, still orating figure.

"Oh!" she murmured. "He's no reverence for anything--life or death. I believe he's positively enjoying this: he's been talking like that ever since he came in and told me of it."

Mr. Raven and I made a very hurried breakfast and prepared to join Tarver. The news of the murder had spread through the household; we found two or three of the men-servants ready to accompany us. And Mr.

Cazalette was ready, too, and, I thought, more eager than any of the rest. Indeed, when we set out from the house he led the way, across the gardens and pleasure-grounds, along the yew-hedge (at which he never so much as gave a glance) and through the belt of pine wood. At its further extremity he glanced at Mr. Raven.

"From what Middlebrook says, this man must be lying in Kernwick Cove,"

he said. "Now, there's a footpath across the headlands and the field above from Long Houghton village to that spot. Quick must have followed it last night. But how came he to meet his murderer--or did his murderer follow him? And what was Quick doing down here? Was he directed here--or led here?"

Mr. Raven seemed to think these questions impossible of immediate answer: his one anxiety at that moment appeared to be to set the machinery of justice in motion. He was manifestly relieved when, as we came to the open country behind the pines and firs, where a narrow lane ran down to the sea, we heard the rattle of a light dog-cart and turned to see the inspector of police and a couple of his men, who had evidently hurried off at once on receiving the telephone message. With them, seated by the inspector on the front seat of the trap, was a professional-looking man who proved to be the police-surgeon.

We all trooped down to the beach, where Tarver was keeping his unpleasant vigil. He had been taking a look round the immediate scene of the murder, he said, during my absence, thinking that he might find something in the way of a clue. But he had found nothing: there were no signs of any struggle anywhere near. It seemed clear that two men had crossed the land, descended the low cliffs, and that one had fallen on the other as soon as the sands were reached--the footmarks indicated as much. I pointed them out to the police, who examined them carefully, and agreed with me that one set was undoubtedly made by the boots of the dead man while the other was caused by the pressure of some light-footed, lightly-shoed person. And there being nothing else to be seen or done at that place, Salter Quick was lifted on to an improvised stretcher which the servants had brought down from the Court and carried by the way we had come to an outhouse in the gardens, where the police-surgeon proceeded to make a more careful examination of his body. He was presently joined in this by the medical man of whom Mr. Raven had spoken--a Dr. Lorrimore, who came hurrying up in his motor-car, and at once took a hand in his fellow-pract.i.tioner's investigations. But there was little to investigate--just as I had thought from the first. Quick had been murdered by a knife-thrust from behind--dealt with evident knowledge of the right place to strike, said the two doctors, for his heart had been transfixed, and death must have been instantaneous.

Mr. Raven shrank away from these gruesome details, but Mr. Cazalette showed the keenest interest in them, and would not be kept from the doctor's elbows. He was pertinacious in questioning them.

"And what sort of a weapon was it, d'ye suppose that the a.s.sa.s.sin used?" he asked. "That'll be an important thing to know, I'm thinking."

"It might have been a seaman's knife," said the police-surgeon. "One of those with a long, sharp blade."

"Or," said Dr. Lorrimore, "a stiletto--such as foreigners carry."

"Aye," remarked Mr. Cazalette, "or with an operating knife--such as you medicos use. Any one of those fearsome things would serve, no doubt. But we'll be doing more good, Middlebrook, just to know what the police are finding in the man's pockets."

The police-inspector had got all Quick's belongings in a little heap.

They were considerable. Over thirty pounds in gold and silver. Twenty pounds in notes in an old pocket-book. His watch--certainly a valuable one. A pipe, a silver match-box, a tobacco-box of some metal, quaintly chased and ornamented. Various other small matters--but, with one exception, no papers or letters. The one exception was a slightly torn, dirty envelope addressed in an ill-formed handwriting to Mr.

Salter Quick, care of Mr. Noah Quick, The Admiral Parker, Haulaway Street, Devonport. There was no letter inside it, nor was there another sc.r.a.p of writing anywhere about the dead man's pockets.

The police allowed Mr. Cazalette to inspect these things according to his fancy. It was very clear to me by that time that the old gentleman had some taste for detective work, and I watched him with curiosity while he carefully examined Quick's money, his watch (of which he took particular notice, even going so far as to jot down its number and the name of its maker on his s.h.i.+rt cuff), and the rest of his belongings. But nothing seemed to excite his interest very deeply until he began to finger the tobacco-box; then, indeed, his eyes suddenly coruscated, and he turned to me almost excitedly.

"Middlebrook!" he whispered, edging me away from the others. "Do you look here, my lad! D'ye see the inside of the lid of this box? There's been something--a design, a plan, something of that sort, anyway--scratched into it with the point of a nail, or a knife. Look at the lines--and see, there's marks and there's figures! Now I'd like to know what all that signifies? What are you going to do with all these things?" he asked, turning suddenly on the inspector. "Take them away?"

"They'll all be carefully sealed up and locked up till the inquest, sir," replied the inspector. "No doubt the dead man's relatives will claim them."

Mr. Cazalette laid down the tobacco-box, left the place, and hurried away in the direction of the house. Within a few minutes he came hurrying back, carrying a camera. He went up to the inspector with an almost wheedling air.

"Ye'll just indulge an old man's fancy?" he said, placatingly.

"There's some queer marking inside the lid of that bit of a box that the poor man kept his tobacco in. I'd like to take a photograph of them. Man! you don't know that an examination of them mightn't be useful."

CHAPTER V

THE NEWS FROM DEVONPORT

The police-inspector, a somewhat silent, stolid sort of man, looked down from his superior height on Mr. Cazalette's eager face with a half-bored, half-tolerant expression; he had already seen a good deal of the old gentleman's fussiness.

"What is it about the box?" he demanded.

"Certain marks on it--inside the lid--that I'd like to photograph,"

answered Mr. Cazalette. "They're small and faint, but if I get a good negative of them I can enlarge it. And I say again, you don't know what one mightn't find out--any little detail is of value in a case of this sort."