The Ashiel mystery: A Detective Story by Mrs. Charles Bryce (read out loud books TXT) 📖

"Has any suspicious looking person been seen about this place, this summer? Any foreigner, for instance?" asked the detective.

"No; no," Mark replied. "I should have heard of it for certain if there had been. It would have been an event, down here."

Gimblet dropped the subject.

"If I may," he said. "I will keep this. It may lead to something," he added, tucking the letter away in an inside pocket. "That's all, I suppose?"

Mark was silent for a minute. He seemed to be thinking.

"That's all I know about the murder," he said at last, "but there are plenty of complications apart from that. I suppose Miss Byrne told you that my uncle electrified us all by saying she was his daughter, only an hour or so before he died?"

Gimblet nodded. "Yes," he said, "she told me."

"It makes it very awkward for me," said Mark. "I want to do the right thing, but I'm hanged if I know what I ought to do. You see, my uncle used to say that he'd left his property between me and David; he never made any secret of it, and as a matter of fact I've had a communication from his London lawyers, telling me they have a very old will, made when I was a small boy, long before the birth of his son, and that everything is left to me. There were reasons why he may have thought David would be provided for—he was engaged to marry a very rich American, but she dropped him yesterday like a red-hot coal as soon as it began to look as if he'd be suspected. She's gone now, I'm glad to say. As a matter of fact, if David can only be cleared of this horrible charge, I shall insist on dividing my inheritance with him. That is, if I can't get Miss Byrne to take it, or Miss McConachan, as I ought to call her now."

"Lord Ashiel could leave his money where he liked, couldn't he?"
Gimblet inquired.

"Yes, he could, but he would naturally have left it to his daughter, if she really was his daughter. In fact, Miss McConachan says he told her he had done so, but I haven't come across the will so far, though I had a good hunt through his papers this morning; Blanston and the housekeeper, who say they witnessed some document which may have been a will, have no idea where it is. Of course, my uncle may have intended to say that he was going to make one, and Miss McConachan may have misunderstood him, but she seems to think he had some secret hiding-place of his own, and I hope to goodness you'll be able to hit on it, if he had. I can't stand the idea of profiting by a lost will, and I'd far rather simply hand over the money than bother to look for this missing paper."

"Oh, I daresay it will turn up," said Gimblet. "You haven't had much time to find it yet."

"My uncle was a very methodical man. Everything is in its place. You wait till you see his papers! If he made a will he must have hidden it somewhere where we shall never dream of looking for it. It's just waste of time hunting about, and I shall have another try at persuading my new cousin to let me make over everything to her."

"It is not every young man in your position who would part so readily with a large fortune," observed Gimblet.

But Mark awkwardly deprecated his approving words.

"Oh," he said, "I'm sure any decent chap would do the same in my place."

"And now," said Gimblet, "may I visit the scene of the crime?"

Mark took him first to his uncle's bedroom; a room austere in its simplicity, with bare white-washed walls and uncarpeted floor. No one could have hidden a sheet of paper in that room, thought the detective, as he gazed round it, after he had looked, with a feeling akin to guilt, on the features of the dead peer. He had not known how to protect this man from the dreadful fate that had struck him down from a direction so utterly unexpected, and he held himself, in a way, responsible for his death.

Then young Ashiel led him away, down a wide corridor into the billiard-room, and so into another passage, at the end of which a door of stout and time-darkened oak gave access to the library. It creaked noisily on its hinges, as he pushed it open and ushered Gimblet in. They stepped into a square room, comfortably furnished, with deep arm-chairs, and a large chippendale writing-table which stood at right angles to the bow window, so placed that anyone writing at it should have the light upon his left. It was rather a dark room, the walls being lined with books from floor to ceiling, except at two points: opposite the window an alcove, panelled in ancient oak, appeared in the wall; and above the fireplace, opposite the door, the wall was panelled in the same manner and covered by an oil painting, representing Lord Ashiel's grandmother. The polished boards were unconcealed by any rug or carpet, and reflected a little of the light from the window. An ominous discoloration near the writing-table showed plainly upon them.

In the glass of the mullioned casement was the small round hole made by the fatal bullet.

Gimblet glanced at the bureau on which the writing materials were set out in perfect order, and could not conceal his annoyance.

"Everything has been moved, I see," he said. "Why couldn't they leave it as it was for a few hours longer?"

"Nothing was touched till after the police had gone," said Mark. "I confess I did not think it necessary to leave things alone once they were out of the house. Not only have the housemaids been at work in here, but I spent most of the morning here myself, going through the papers in that bureau. Will it matter much?" He spoke with evident dismay.

"Never mind," said Gimblet, "I suppose Macross's people photographed everything, and I can get copies from them, I have no doubt. By the by, what did Sir David Southern say about having been in the room while you were in bed? Did he admit it; and did he say why he moved the body?"

"He said he'd not been near the place," replied Mark, looking more perplexed and worried than ever. "I can't understand it at all," he added. "Why should he deny it to me?"

Gimblet opened a drawer in the bureau. Papers filled it, tied together in bundles and neatly docketed. They seemed to be receipted bills. He glanced at the pigeon-holes, and opened one or two more drawers. Everywhere the most fastidious order reigned.

"You have been through all these?" he asked.

"Yes, but there is a cupboard full in the smoking-room. I thought of looking into those this afternoon."

"It would be a good plan," Gimblet agreed. "Don't let me keep you," And as the young man still lingered, "I prefer," he confessed, "to do my work alone. If you will kindly get me a shooting-boot of Sir David Southern's, I shall do better if I am left to myself."

"If that is really the case," said Mark, "I have no choice but to leave you. I admit I should have liked to see your methods, but if I should be a hindrance—"

Gimblet did not deny it, and Mark departed to fetch the boots.

"This is not the identical pair," he said when he returned. "The police took those; but these come from the same maker and are nearly the same, so Blanston tells me."

"Ah, yes, Blanston," said Gimblet. "I must see him presently. Thanks very much."

Left alone, Gimblet examined the window, opening one of the small-paned casements, and measuring the space between the mullions and the central bars of iron. Satisfied as to the impossibility of any ordinary-sized person passing through those apertures, he took one more look round, and then with a swift movement drew each of the heavy curtains across the bay. They did not quite meet in the middle, as Juliet had observed. Then he made his way out into the garden through the door just outside, at the end of the passage which led from the billiard-room to the library.

The library was at the far end of the oldest portion of Inverashiel Castle. To Gimblet, examining it from the outside, it looked as if the room had been hewn out of the solid walls of the ancient fortress; for beyond the mullioned, seventeenth-century window, the wall turned sharply to the left and was continued with scarce a loophole in the stupendous blocks of its surface for a distance of fifty yards or so, where it was succeeded by the lower, less heavy battlements of the old out-works. In the angle formed by the turn and immediately opposite the window of the library, a long flower-bed, planted with standard and other rose trees, with violas growing sparsely in between, stretched its blossoming length, and continued up to the actual stones of the library wall. At the farther end of it, a thick hedge of holly bordered on the roses at right angles to the end of the battlements; while the lawn on his left was spangled with geometrically shaped beds showing elaborate arrangements of heliotrope, ageratum, calceolarias, and other bedding-out plants.

Gimblet walked slowly along the lawn at the edge of the bed, his eyes on the black peaty mould, where it was visible among the flowers. About twenty yards from the hedge, he stopped with a muffled exclamation. The bed in front of him was covered with footprints of all shapes and sizes; but plainly distinguishable among the rest were the neat nail-encrusted marks which matched the boot he held in his hand. He put it down on the ground and carefully made an imprint with it in the soil, beside the existing footmarks. It was easy to single out its fellows.

"Two extra nails," murmured Gimblet to himself, "but otherwise, the same.
Probably made on the same last."

Stepping cautiously in the places where his predecessors had walked, he followed the tracks that had betrayed Sir David Southern. They were numerous and distinct; he counted fourteen of each separate foot. First Sir David would seem to have walked straight across the bed, then returned and taken up his position near the middle. He was not contented with that, it seemed, for he had walked backwards five or six paces and then moved sideways again till he was exactly opposite the opening between the curtains. Here the ground was trampled down as if he had several times shifted slightly from one place to another. Whether or not he was exactly in line with the writing-table Gimblet could not see, as its position was hidden in the obscurity behind the drawn curtains. It would want a light there to prove that, thought Gimblet; still there was no reason to doubt that it was so. There were four or five more footmarks leading back to the lawn, and over these Gimblet stooped with particular interest.

With a tape measure, which he took from his pocket, he measured the distances between the prints, entering the various figures in his notebook, beside carefully drawn diagrams. Then he picked his way to the edge of the lawn, and stood a moment considering.

Apparently he was not satisfied, for presently he retraced his steps delicately to the middle of the bed, till he was once more just behind the place where the earth was trodden down. After pausing there an instant, he turned once more, and ran quickly back to the grass, without this time troubling himself to step in the chain of footprints used previously by the police. But he had not even yet finished; and was soon crouching down again, with the tape measure in one hand and the notebook in the other, poring over the evidence preserved so carefully by the impartial soil.

At last he got up, put his measure back in his pocket, and walked slowly towards the hedge. He had nearly reached it when something at his feet arrested his attention. He bent over it curiously.

Near the edge of the grass and parallel to it, there was an indentation a little over an inch wide and about the same depth. It extended in a straight line for perhaps nine inches, and what could have caused it was a puzzle to Gimblet. The turf was unbroken, and it looked as if an oblong,