Simon/Chapter 38
XXXVIII
TRAPPED
Cromarty and Carrington slipped unostentatiously out of the hotel a few minutes after eight o'clock.
"Take any line you like," said Carrington, "but as he knows now that you brought Miss Farmond back and have heard her version, he'll naturally be feeling a little uncomfortable about the place where one generally gets kicked, when he sees you march in. He will expect you to open out on that subject, so if I were you I'd take the natural line of country and do what he expects."
"Including the kicking?"
Carrington laughed.
"Keep him waiting for that. Spin it out; that's your job to-night."
"I wish it were more than talking!" said Ned.
"Well," drawled Carrington, "it may lead to something more amusing. Who knows? You haven't bought your own gun, I suppose? Take mine."
He handed him the same little article he had taken out the night before, and Ned's eye gleamed.
"What!" said he. "That kind of gun once more? This reminds me of old times!"
"It's a mere precaution," said the other. "Don't count on using it! Remember, you're going to visit the most respectable citizen of the town—perhaps on a wild goose errand."
"I guess not," said Ned quietly.
"We daren't assume anything. I don't want to make a fool of myself, and no more do you, I take it."
"I see," said Ned, with a nod. "Well, I'll keep him in his chair for you."
"That's it."
They were walking quickly through the silent town under the windy night sky. It was a dark boisterous evening, not inviting for strollers, and they scarcely passed a soul till they were in the quiet road where the villa stood. There, from the shadows of a gateway, two figures moved out to meet them, and Cromarty recognised Superintendent Sutherland and one of his constables. The two saluted in silence and fell in behind. They each carried, he noticed, something long-shaped wrapped up loosely in sacking.
"What have they got there?" he asked.
"Prosaic instruments," smiled Carrington. "I won't tell you more for fear the gamble doesn't come off."
"Like the sensation before one proposes, I suppose," said Ned. "Well, going by that, the omens ought to be all right."
They turned in through Simon's gates and then the four stopped.
"We part here," whispered Carrington. "Good luck!"
"Same to you," said Ned briefly, and strode up the drive.
As he came out into the gravel sweep before the house, he looked hard into the darkness of the garden, but beyond the tossing shapes of trees, there was not a sign of movement.
"Mr. Rattar in?" he enquired. "Sitting in the library I suppose? Take me right to him. Cromarty's my name."
"Mr. Cromarty to see you, sir," announced Mary, and she was startled to see the master's sudden turn in his chair and the look upon his face.
"Whether he was feared or whether he was angered, I canna rightly say," she told cook, "but anyway he looked fair mad like!"
"Good evening," said Ned.
His voice was restrained and dry, and as he spoke he strode across the room and seated himself deliberately in the arm chair on the side of the fire opposite to the lawyer.
Simon had banished that first look which Mary saw, but there remained in his eyes something more than their usual cold stare. Each day since Carrington came seemed to have aged his face and changed it for the worse: a haggard, ugly, malicious face it seemed to his visitor looking hard at it to-night. His only greeting was a briefer grunt than ordinary.
"I daresay you can guess what's brought me here," said Ned.
The lawyer rapped out his first words jerkily.
"No. I can't."
"Try three guesses," suggested his visitor. "Come now, number one?"
For a moment Simon was silent, but to-night he could not hide the working of that face which usually hid his thoughts so effectually. It was plain he hesitated what line to take.
"You have seen Miss Farmond, I hear," he said.
"You're on the scent," said his visitor encouragingly. "Have another go."
"You believe her story."
"I do."
"It's false."
Ned stared at him very hard and then he spoke deliberately.
"I'm wondering," said he.
"Wondering what?" asked Simon.
"Whether a horse whip or the toe of a shooting boot is the best cure for your complaint."
The lawyer shrank back into his chair.
"Do you threaten me?" he jerked out. "Be careful!"
"If I threatened you I'd certainly do what I threatened," said Ned. "So far I'm only wondering. Where did you learn to lie, Mr. Rattar?"
The lawyer made no answer at all. His mind seemed concentrated on guessing the other's probable actions.
"Out with it, man! I've met some denied good liars in my time, but you beat the lot. I'm anxious to know where you learned the trick, that's all."
"Why do you believe her more than me?" asked Simon.
"Because you've been found out lying before. That was a pretty stiff one about your engaging Carrington, wasn't it?"
Simon was quite unable to control his violent start, and his face turned whiter.
"I—I didn't say I did," he stammered.
"Well," said Ned, "I admit I wasn't there to hear you, but I know Carrington made you put your foot fairly in it just by way of helping him to size you up, and he got your size right enough too."
"Then" began Simon, and stopped and changed it into: "What does Carrington suspect—er—accuse me of?"
Ned stared at him for several seconds without speaking, and this procedure seemed to disconcert the lawyer more than anything had done yet.
"What—what does Carrington mean?" he repeated.
"He means you've lied, and he believes Miss Farmond, and he believes Sir Malcolm, and he believes me, and he puts you down as a pretty bad egg. What did you expect to be accused of?"
Simon could no more hide his relief to-night than he could hide his fears.
"Only of what you have told me—only of course of what you say! But I can explain. In good time I can explain."
It was at that moment that the door opened sharply and the start the lawyer gave showed the state of his nerves after Mr. Cromarty's handling. Mary MacLean stood in the doorway, her face twitching.
"What's the matter?" snapped her master.
"Please, sir, there are men in the garden!" she cried.
The lawyer leapt to his feet.
"Men in the garden!" he cried, and there was a note in his voice which startled even tough Ned Cromarty. "What are they doing?"
"I don't know, sir. It sounded almost as if they was digging."
Simon swayed for an instant and grasped the back of his chair. Then in a muffled voice he muttered:
"I'm going to see!"
He had scarcely made a step towards the door when Cromarty was on his feet too.
"Steady!" he cried. "Get out there, and shut the door!"
The towering form and formidable voice sent Mary out with a shut door between them almost as the command was off his tongue. A couple of strides and he had got the lawyer by the shoulder and pulled him back.
"Sit down!" he commanded.
Simon turned on him with a new expression. The terror had passed away and he stood there now as the sheer beast at bay.
"Damn you!" he muttered, and turned his back for a moment.
The next, his hand rose and simultaneously Ned's arm shot out and got him by the wrist, while the shock of his onslaught drove the man back and down into his chair. Though Simon was tough and stoutly built, he was as a child in the hands of his adversary. A sharp twist of the wrist was followed by an exclamation of pain and the thud of something heavy on the floor. Ned stooped and picked up the globular glass match box that had stood on the table. For a few moments he stared at it in dead silence, balancing it in his hands. It was like a small cannon ball for concentrated weight. Then in a curious voice he asked:
"Is this the first time you have used this?"
Simon made no reply. His face was dead white now, but dogged and grim, and his mouth stayed tight as a trap. Ned replaced the match box on the table, and planted himself before the fire.
"Nothing to say?" he asked, and Simon said nothing.
They remained like this for minute after minute; not a movement in the room and the booming of the wind the only sound. And then came footsteps on the gravel and the ringing of a bell.
"We'll probably learn something now," said Ned, but the other still said nothing, and only a quick glance towards the door gave a hint of his thoughts.
There was no announcement this time. Superintendent Sutherland entered first, then the constable, and Carrington last. The superintendent went straight up to the lawyer, his large face preternaturally solemn. Touching him on the shoulder he said:
"I arrest you in the King's name!"
The man in the chair half started up and then fell back again.
"What for?" he asked huskily.
"The murder of Simon Rattar."
The lawyer took it as one who had seen the sword descending, but not so Ned Cromarty.
"Of Simon Rattar!" he shouted. "What the—then who the devil is this?"
Carrington answered. He spoke with his usual easy smile, but his triumphant eye betrayed his heart.
"The superintendent has omitted part of the usual formalities," he said. "This person should have been introduced as Mr. George Rattar."
"George!" gasped Ned. "But I thought he was dead!"
"So did I," said Carrington, "but he wasn't."
"What proof have you of this story?" de-demanded the man in the chair suddenly.
"We have just dug up your brother's body from that flower bed," said Carrington quietly. "Do you recognise his ring?"
He held up a gold signet ring, and the lawyer fell back in his chair.
"But look here!" exclaimed Ned, "what about Sir Reginald's murder? He did that too, I suppose!"
Carrington nodded.
"We hope to add that to his account in a day or two. This is enough to be going on with, but as a matter of fact we have nearly enough evidence now to add the other charge."
"I can add one bit," said Ned, picking up the match box. "He has just tried to do me in with this little thing, and I take it, it was the third time of using."
Carrington weighed it in his hand, and then said to the prisoner:
"You put it in the end of a stocking, I suppose?"
The man looked up at him with a new expression in his eye. If it were not a trace of grim humour, it was hard to say what else it could be.
"Get me a drink," he said huskily, nodding towards the tantalus on the side table, "and I'll tell you the whole damned yarn. My God, I'm dry as a damned bone!"
"Give me the key of the tantalus," said Carrington promptly.
But the superintendent seemed somewhat taken aback.
"Anything you say may be used against you," he reminded the prisoner.
"You know enough to swing me, anyhow," said Rattar, "hut I'd like you to know that I didn't really mean to do it. I want that drink-first though!"
He took the glass of whisky and water and as he raised it to his lips, that same curious look came back into his eye.
"Here's to the firm of S. and G. Rattar, and may their clients be as damned as themselves!" he said with a glance at Cromarty, and finished the drink at a draught.