The Chronicles of Addington Peace/The Mystery of the Causeway
IV
THE MYSTERY OF THE CAUSEWAY
It was on Thursday, May 18th, 1899, that young Sir Andrew Cheyne was found dead of a gunshot wound in the grounds of Airlie Hall, his house in Surrey.
I was myself especially interested in the case, as I was staying at a cottage within three miles of the Hall at the time. All the gossip came to us first hand. By breakfast we learned of the death. An hour later came the rumour of murder, and the fact that an arrest had been made. A man had been caught running from the spot where the body lay.
My host was a bachelor and a brother artist. His little place was bound by no conventions. Go or come, but don't trouble to explain—such was the custom. He was busy that morning, as I knew, so I appropriated his bicycle and set off through the lanes to visit the scene of the tragedy.
Airlie Hall lay some two hundred yards back from the main road. The drive, framed in wide stretches of turf, and flanked by a triple avenue of chestnuts, ran in a straight line from the great porch to the entrance gates of twisted iron. Peering through the bars were a dozen villagers. Within, his hand upon the lock, stood a policeman, massive, red-faced, pompous with his present importance.
“May I come in?” I asked politely.
“You may not,” he said quite briefly.
I put my hand in my pocket, hesitated, and drew it out empty. It was too public a place for corruption. If Addington Peace had only been with me, I thought—and, so thinking, came by an idea. Even a rural policeman would know the famous detective's name.
“My friend, Inspector Peace” I began.
“Inspector who?” he interrupted.
“Addington Peace, of the Criminal Investigation Department. I hoped he would be here.”
His manner changed with a celerity which was the greatest compliment he could have paid to the little detective.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “The inspector drove up from the station not ten minutes ago. If you will inquire at the Hall, you will be sure to find him.”
The servant who answered my modest ring led me through a dark passage of panelled oak and out upon the terrace that lay on the farther side of the house. Below it a sloping lawn ran down to a broad lake fringed with reeds. Beyond the lake a park stretched away dotted with single oaks now struggling into foliage. It was a lovely view, unmolested by the centuries. As it was so it had been three hundred years before, when some courtier of Elizabeth, in tightly fitting hose and immaculate ruffles, chose it as the outlook from the windows of his dining-room.
In the middle of the terrace, Addington Peace stood, smoking a cigarette and talking to a tall and stately person in a black coat, who looked every inch the man he was—the butler of a British country house.
The little inspector turned, as he heard my footsteps on the gravel, and nodded a benevolent welcome.
“A fine morning, Mr. Phillips,” he said. “I did not know you were staying in the neighbourhood.”
“I cycled over after hearing the news. Your name opened the gates, Inspector.”
“Well, I am pleased to see you, anyhow. Mr. Roberts here was giving me his view of this unfortunate affair. You may continue, Mr. Roberts.”
The butler had been staring at me with great suspicion; but apparently he concluded that, as a friend of a detective, I was a respectable person.
“Well, gentlemen,” he said, in a soft, oily voice, as from confirmed overeating, “my mind is, so to speak, a blank. But what I know I will say without fear or favour. Sir Andrew had not previously honoured us with his presence, he having remained abroad from the death of Sir William, which was his uncle, some sis months ago. Yesterday—that is, Thursday morning—he wired from London for a carriage to meet the 12.32 train. We were all in a flutter of excitement, as you can well imagine. But when he arrived, it was, he said, with no intention of staying the night. During the afternoon he saw his agent on business, and afterwards went for a walk, returning about six. He dined at eight, and had his coffee served in the small library.
“The last train to London was at 10.25, and we had our orders for a carriage to be ready for him at five minutes to the hour. At ten o'clock precisely I took the liberty of entering the small library to inform Sir Andrew that the carriage was waiting, and that there was only just time to catch the train. He was not there, and, the windows on to the terrace being open, I walked through to see if he was sitting outside, the evening being salubrious for the time of the year. It was while I was there that I heard the footsteps of some one running on the gravel, and, first thing I knew, who should appear but Jake Warner, the keeper. 'Hello, Mr. Warner,' I says, 'and where may you be going in such a hurry? Is it poachers?' I says. 'No,' says he, in a sad taking, 'but Sir Andrew's been shot—shot dead, Mr. Roberts, on the causeway to the island.' 'Heaven defend us,' I says; 'but do'”
“Quite so, Mr. Roberts,” said Peace. “We understand you were much upset. So you have no idea when it was that Sir Andrew left the little library?”
“No, sir, save that it was between nine and ten.”
“Thank you. And now, Mr. Phillips, I think we will go down and have a look at the causeway walk.”
At the end of the terrace we found a policeman waiting. He touched his helmet to the inspector, and, after a few words with him, led the way down some moss-grown steps and over a sloping lawn towards the lake. We skirted the right hand edge for perhaps two hundred yards, until we came to where a short causeway of stone had been built out into the water, joining the lawns to a shrub-grown island. The roof of a gabled cottage peeped out from the heart of its yews and laurels. The causeway, paved with great slabs of slate, was never more than five feet broad. On either side of it was a dense growth of feathery reeds, hiding the lake behind their rustling walls.
“What cottage is that?” asked Peace, pointing a finger.
“When he was a young man, Sir William, that was Sir Andrew's uncle, used to give lunches and teas there in the summer months,” said the policeman. “But the place has been shut up for a long time now, sir. No one goes to the island barring the ducks, and they nest there by the hundred.”
“Where did you catch the prisoner?”
“About this very place, sir. It was about half-past nine, and I was walking down the public footpath, which passes the east corner of the lake, when I heard the shot. It seemed a strange time of the year for night poaching, but there are rascals in the village who wouldn't hesitate about the seasons so long as they had a duck for dinner.
“Off I raced as hard as I could put legs to the ground. When I came to the causeway head I pulled up and looked about me. There was a slip of a moon over the island, and a plenty of stars, so that the night was fairly bright. No one was in sight, but presently I heard the thump, thump, of a man running over turf, and who should come panting down the slope but Jake Warner, the keeper. He was in such a hurry that he was nigh as close as I am to you, sir, before he saw me.
“'Good Lord!' he cried, jumping back; 'and what are you doing here?'
“'Didn't you hear a shot fired?' I asked.
“'Not a sound of it,' he said, with a sulky face on him.
“It surprised me more than a bit. Indeed, I had begun to wonder if I could have been mistaken, when there came a clatter on the slabs of the causeway, and a man rushed out from the reeds like a mad thing. He gave a little cry like a frightened rabbit when he caught sight of us, and tried to twist away, but his feet slipped from under him, and down he fell. Before he could recover I was sitting on his chest.
“'I had no hand in it,' he shouted. 'I swear to you it was not me. I was to meet him on the island. He was dead when I came to him.'
“'Dead—who is dead?' asked Jake, very anxious.
“'Sir Andrew Cheyne,' said the man, with a shiver.
“I was that taken aback that if he had made a run for it he might have done so for all I could have stopped him. As for Jake, he gave a yelp and disappeared down the causeway, like a rat into a hole.
“'Sir Andrew is in France,' I said, for so Mr. Roberts had told me not a week before. 'You're crazy, man.'
“'Shut your mouth, you fool'—those were his very words, sir—'I tell you Cheyne is dead. Go and look for yourself.'
“'I must trouble you to come with me, then,' said I, taking him by the collar.
“We walked down the causeway between the reeds, he in front and me behind with my hand in his neck. About halfway down we came upon Jake, who was kneeling by the body, which lay flat on its back. I had never seen Sir Andrew and no more had Jake, so we had to take the stranger's word for it. When we found there was no sign of life left in him, I sent Jake to get assistance. He came back with Mr. Roberts and two of the men, who carried away the body up to the house, while I arrested my prisoner and walked him off to the lock-up. We found a loaded revolver upon him. He refused to say who he was or to make any explanation.”
“And afterwards?” asked Addington Peace.
“I searched the causeway as soon as it was light. There was nothing to be found. But the evidence against the prisoner seems clear enough, saving the fact that the shotgun he used has disappeared. He must have thrown it into the water. They will drag the lake for it this afternoon. We've got the real murderer all right, don't you think, sir?”
“Did you search the island before you left last night?”
“No, sir.”
“Might not another man have been concealed there?”
The policeman did not reply, save by colouring a deeper red and staring hard at his boots.
“Well, well, no one can think of everything,” said Peace, with a flicker of a smile. “Come and show me where you found him.”
The dark stain upon the slabs between the nodding reeds was sign-post sufficient. The little detective took one look at the spot, and then stood with his hands behind his back, peering about him.
“Were the prisoner's clothes wet?” he asked quietly.
“No, sir; quite dry.”
“And how deep is the lake?”
“From three to six feet, or so I've always heard.”
“Is there a boat on it?”
“Jake keeps an old punt, I believe, but the pleasure craft are under lock and key in the boathouse. They've not been in the water for years, and would leak like sieves.”
“That is all. Go up to the house and wait for me there. I shall be back in an hour or so.”
The policeman saluted and retired down the causeway, his heavy boots clattering upon the stones.
“Now we can get to work, Mr. Phillips,” said the little man, cheerfully, his eyes dancing with a pleasant expectation. “While I am making a little examination of the causeway, I should be obliged if you will wait for me at the cottage on the island yonder.”
The last thing I saw of him was a neat boot sticking out from the reeds into which he was crawling on hands and knees.
The cottage was an old-fashioned, one-storied building. The red tiles of its gabled roof had been delicately toned by age until they had sunk to a colour very restful to an artist's eye. Wooden shutters blocked the windows; its door of stained and worm-eaten oak was firmly secured. A path led through straggling laurel bushes from the door to the lake, and I walked down it to the loud outcry of the nesting ducks that rose with flapping wings about me and circled round to splash into the water at a safe distance. By a dilapidated wooden landing-stage I stopped to light a cigarette. As I threw away the match a ragged tear in the deep moss that covered the planking caught my eye. I stooped to examine it. Under the moss the wood itself was splintered with a deep, fresh scar! I studied the rest of the landing-stage without result. Neither the moss nor the exposed patches of woodwork showed any similar signs. The one fresh scar—that was all.
I was still considering the problem when Peace joined me. He was in high good humour. For a time he stared at the mark with his head on one side like a meditative sparrow, and then, seizing me by the arm, led me back by the way we had come.
“Picturesque, eh!” he said, pointing to the old pavilion. “It catches your artistic eye. Perhaps you will have time to make a sketch of it this afternoon.”
“Nonsense,” I said, irritably enough. “Who shot this poor fellow?”
“No one.”
“What—suicide?”
“Nothing so simple, I'm afraid. Now, don't lose your temper. You will understand within the hour. Come along.”
“Where are we going?”
“To visit our esteemed friend Jake Warner. There is just a chance he may show temper. Shall we risk it, Mr. Phillips, or shall we call the policeman from the house yonder?”
I told him quite briefly that I would see the policeman condemned first.
Warner's cottage was a straw-thatched, ivy-covered little place, built on the slope of the park. Beneath it a brook that carried the overflow from the lake gurgled monotonously by. A thin, long-legged man, who was digging in a patch of garden, stopped his work at sight of us and waited, leaning on his spade.
“Jake Warner, isn't it?” Peace inquired over the low fence of split pine.
“Yes, sir.”
“I am Inspector Addington Peace, of the Criminal Investigation Department.”
Warner said nothing, but I saw his fingers clench upon his spade, as he gave the detective stare for stare.
“A fairly good breeding season for the ducks, I should imagine,” continued the little man, with a benevolent interest.
There was still no reply.
“I understand the foxes are very troublesome.”
Warner threw down his spade and strode up to where we stood. His eyes had in them the dumb agony of a wild thing in a trap.
“I am a married man, sir,” he said. “For my wife's sake take me away quietly.”
“I have not come to arrest you, Jake Warner,” said Peace. “If you are responsible for your master's death, it was by sheer accident. But the question is, are you responsible?”
“No, sir, I am not. But I can never prove it.”
“Perhaps it would be best if you explained.”
We remained where we were, with the fence between us, while he told his story.
“It was on Monday afternoon, sir,” he said, addressing the detective. “I was crossing the public footpath that runs near the other end of the lake, when I fell in with a middle-aged, spectacled gentleman, who was strolling along with a tin collecting-case on his back, such as botanists use. We fell to talking, and one thing led to another, until, when I turned off down to the lake to see after my ducks, he came with me. He never meant no harm as I know of, but I would give all I have never to have seen him.”
“What was he like?” asked the inspector.
“A short fellow, with a brown full beard and a slight stutter. Very pleasant he was to talk to; but this is outside the point, sir, as you will see. We walked down the causeway, and just before the pavilion what should we come across but three dead birds, all with their heads bitten clean off. It made me wild, for the foxes have been plaguing me cruel this spring. Sir William never would have one shot, though he had given up hunting many years. As for the young master, I couldn't say as to his views, for I had never set eyes upon him.
“The stranger, he sympathized very kindly with me, and I told him my troubles. 'How they can expect a keeper to rear a decent lot of wild duck with a plague of foxes in his midst, I'm dashed if I know,' I said. He allowed that a fox who would kill ducks like that was as bad as a man-eating tiger. 'She's a cunning old vixen as won't let me get within shot of her,' I told him, 'but I've half a mind to set a spring gun for her on the causeway here.'
“Bless my soul, how that fellow laughed. He threw back his head and crowed with joy at my idea. 'A spring gun for a fox,' he says; 'why, keeper, it's the very thing! Think of the simplicity of it and the certainty of it and the security of it.' Those were his words. After that he sobered down and began talking more serious. Did I really understand how best to set a spring gun? I told him no; and then he explained how he had a friend from India who had often used them to kill jackals. Whether I did right or wrong, the fact is that I agreed to set the gun when he sent me the instructions.
“Well, sir, his letter arrived yesterday morning with careful little plans and all. I loaded my gun with buckshot and carried it down to the causeway shortly after dusk. I had lost several more ducks each day, and my mind was made up to have that old vixen. I fixed the gun, with a thread of strong cotton across the path and round the trigger. You may think I took a wicked risk, but I had hardly ever known any one to pass along the causeway in the daytime, far less at night. Yet, for safety's sake, I meant to take it up again at dawn.
“I walked home and sat smoking my pipe for a while. But I was worried and disturbed. I couldn't get it from my mind that there was danger in that spring gun left to itself as it were. Even if I bagged the old vixen some one might hear the shot and find the body. A dead fox would make me a marked man amongst all the hunting people about. I didn't like that thought neither. At last I couldn't stand it no longer, and set off back to the causeway. I was more than half-way when I heard the shot, and that set me running. When I saw the policeman I was mightily afraid he would be finding the vixen dead. That's why I lied to him.”
“I know the rest, Warner,” said Peace; “but I want a few details. Did you see any sign of another man?”
“No, sir.”
“Where was Sir Andrew hit?”
“The chest, sir; he got it full in the chest.”
“So I understood. A curious elevation of the muzzle, eh? Did you expect a fox over five feet high?”
Peace brought out the words with a snap, but the keeper answered him without hesitation.
“That is the point, sir,” he said. “That is why I am not responsible for the master's death. I set the gun at a level of eight inches from the ground, which I reckoned would take the fox about the shoulder. Some one altered the elevation of the muzzle after I had gone.”
“The second forked stick that supported the gun was in the mud. Might it not have sunk under the weight, and thus raised the muzzle?”
“No, sir. I had pushed it through the mud down to the gravel. It was a good foot deeper when I went to look at it. A man must have used great force to get it so far through the gravel.”
“What became of the gun?”
“After they carried Sir Andrew away, I must have gone off my head for awhile. What would they say to me for setting such a trap for my master? That was the only thing I could think about. I ran back and pulled up the sticks, and carried away the gun to the cottage here.”
“But you saw the policeman arrest the man whom we may presume to be the murderer?”
“Yes, sir; but I was too wild to reason it out. I made up my mind this morning to tell them all about it at the inquest. That is the truth.”
“Did you use the punt last night?”
“No, sir, it must have been the man that was caught. I missed her this morning, and after a search found her in the reeds near the island where she had drifted. Though I don't see how you could have known anything about the punt, sir.”
“The iron-shod pole had chipped the landing-stage. The other man had ferried himself across rather than use the causeway. And now please fetch me the plans and the gun.”
When Warner returned, Peace slipped the envelope into his pocket, and examined the weapon with great care, snapping the lock twice.
“You had eased the trigger, eh?”
“Yes, sir; I thought a light pull would be best, so I oiled and loosened the screws.”
The little man handed it back to him and turned away, staring over the lake towards the distant woodlands, with his lithe hands clasped behind his back.
“That fellow, sir—he must have done it, don't you think?” asked the under-keeper.
“So it would seem, Warner,” said Addington Peace over his shoulder.
••••••
It was eleven o'clock on the following day when Peace was announced. I was sitting in the garden of my friend's cottage smoking my pipe and reading the paper. From within the villa came the sound of whistling that told of my host working at his Academy picture.
“Why, Peace,” I said, “what brings you here?”
He seated himself on a corner of the garden-bench and lit a cigarette.
“I went back to London last night,” he told me. “And as I had to pass your friend's house on the way from the station to Airlie Hall, I thought I would call in and see you.”
“Any further news?”
“I have had an interesting visit. The botanist with the beard has stepped into a leading part in our little tragedy, Mr. Phillips.”
“Do you mean”
“Yes, I believe him to be the murderer of Sir Andrew Cheyne.”
“Then the man under arrest is innocent.”
“That scarcely describes him—but he had no hand in this crime.”
“Confound you and your riddles,” I said. “Where is the murderer? Have you caught him?”
“There is a carriage at the door. If you care to come along perhaps I may be able to show him to you.”
It was a swift horse from the stables of Airlie Hall, and we covered the ground quickly. There was little talk between us. Twelve had struck when we stepped out at the overhanging porch of the old grey mansion and walked through into the library that overlooked the terrace and the lake. By the window, twisting his cap in his nervous fingers, stood Jake Warner. Peace nodded him a good morning, and then slipped away with a word of apology.
“The detective gentleman wired that he wanted to see me,” said Warner, anxiously. “Do you know why, sir?”
I told him no, and he dropped into an uneasy silence. I amused myself by walking from picture to picture, for the walls were hung with splendid portraits—Gainsborough, Lely, and Romney—it was a veritable exhibition of those great masters. At last the door opened and the little man appeared, glancing from one to the other of us with his shrewd, observant eyes.
“Will you follow me, if you please?” he said.
We tramped up the great staircase, a wide sweep of polished oak, where a dozen men could have walked abreast, and so down a high-roofed passage into a majestic bedroom. In the centre stood a venerable four-post bedstead. The columns that supported the canopy were finely carved, and over the head was a faded coat of arms pictured in the needlework of two hundred years ago. The lattice windows were open. From without came the faint piping of the nesting birds.
Upon the bed lay something covered with white sheeting.
Peace walked up to it and paused, staring hard at the keeper, who stood beside me. Then with a gentle hand he lifted the sheet. On the pillow lay the head of an elderly man, dark, and full bearded.
Warner stepped back, clutching my arm.
“It's the botanist,” he stammered. “What is he doing here? Was it him as killed the master, sir?”
“Yes,” said the little detective; “he killed Sir Andrew Cheyne.”
For a moment he stooped, busying himself about the head. With a gentle pull he lifted the heavy beard away. It was a face younger by a score of years that lay upon the pillows, a face handsome, after its fashion, though deep lined with evil days and ways.
“Sir Andrew himself,” cried Warner, with a sob of terror.
“That is also true,” said Inspector Addington Peace, reverently replacing the white sheet.
••••••
It was an hour afterwards that Peace gave me the details. We were leaning against the stone balustrade of the terrace looking over the lake to the pleasant park land beyond. The breeze-swept rushes that marked the line of the causeway, the gables of the island pavilion that peeped above the foliage, lay to our right, framed in the rippling blue of the mere.
“My first important discovery,” he said, “was a strand of pack-thread tied to a young sapling at the spot where the body of Sir Andrew was found. On the other side of the path was a narrow hole between the slabs of granite, where a peg had lately been driven in. The rushes about it were broken here and there. The conclusion of a spring gun was obvious, and the reason suggested by the track of foxes along the edge of the reeds. Was the death an accident, after all? If so, what business had the stranger under arrest—Fenton, I now find, is his name—upon the island at so late an hour?
“My conversation with the keeper gave some interesting results. It was plainly murder, and no accident. Some one had raised the muzzle of the gun so that it might kill a man and not a fox. Some one had expected a visitor to the island that night against whom he desired to revenge himself. Was Fenton guilty? The evidence against him seemed almost conclusive. He had admitted, you will remember, that he had an appointment with Sir Andrew. Yet, after he had set the trap, why had he continued to risk discovery by loitering about the causeway? How had he known that the spring gun was there at all? Why had he brought a loaded revolver? Why had he borrowed the punt and reached the island by so unexpected a manner? Was he also afraid of some one or some thing? My mind began to turn from him to the second stranger, the botanist with the collecting-case. He at least had information about the setting of the gun.
“There was still a further point. Sir Andrew had been shot full in the chest. If he had been walking down the causeway he would have been hit in the side. How was that?
“Yesterday morning after I sent you away I walked into the village to make inquiries. They have few visitors, and the landlord of the inn remembered the bearded naturalist. He had only once visited the place, driving over from the station, and disappearing for several hours. A hot-tempered man, nervous and excitable—so he described him. When the cab was late he had broken out in a foreign tongue. That was all he knew of him.
“I caught the 3.15 to London and found Scotland Yard in the possession of some additional details. Sir Andrew had been in town for a fortnight living very quietly at a small private hotel off Piccadilly. He had no servant with him. He had been a wild, extravagant lad, they told me, and when his uncle had tired of paying his bills he had tried the stage, got deeper into debt, and finally fled to the Continent, where he lived on a small allowance that the old man made him. All this struck me as curious. The rake had indeed reformed if he heralded his accession to great wealth by dropping a servant and living quietly in a small hotel. Had he other reasons than economy?
“I visited the hotel that night. Sir Andrew had received few callers, the porter told me. I described the botanist, but without success. Then I tried Fenton. The porter recognized my description at once. He had called twice, the first time shortly after Sir Andrew's arrival, the second time on Tuesday evening. The waiter who had taken him up to the baronet's sitting-room told me that the first interview had been long, and that they had quarrelled violently on the stairs.
“'You shall never so much as see the place. If you go there before settling with me I communicate with the police at once.' He remembered some such threat shouted by Fenton on leaving. The second interview had been short, and, so far as he knew, friendly.
“I made a careful search of Sir Andrew's room. It was there that I solved the problem of the mystery; for in his dressing-case was an old 'make-up' box, no doubt a survival from his days upon the stage; and in the box was a full brown beard!”
“And so he was the botanist?” I said with a shiver.
“Yes, Mr. Phillips, he was the botanist.”
There was silence between us for a while. I looked up at the splendid front of the ancient hall, and then across the lawns, over the sparkling mere to the park and the forest lands beyond.
“Was it for this?” I asked with a wave of the hand.
“Yes,” said Peace, “I believe it to have been for Airlie Hall that he tried to kill Fenton. Heaven knows what dismal scandal the man held over him; but it was probably sufficient to drive Sir Andrew from England for ever. From inquiries that we have made, it appears that Fenton had been living on Sir Andrew for over two years. It was undoubtedly a bad case of blackmail. The young man, on hearing of his uncle's death, gave his persecutor the slip, and crossed to London. Fenton followed, and discovered him at his hotel. Probably he demanded a large sum, which was refused him. Whereupon he declared that the baronet should never so much as see Airlie Hall unless he paid, and left the young man with that threat upon him.
“For days Sir Andrew stayed sulking in his rooms. He was a man of violent temper and unscrupulous past. Heaven knows what schemes of revenge he hatched in his rage and despair. Finally, on Monday last, he risked discovery, disguised himself in the beard, and went down to see the old place again. His meeting with the keeper was a chance, and their talk of spring-guns an equal accident. But the suggestion gave the baronet an idea. 'A spring-gun for a fox'—you remember his words as Warner told us. He laughed with hysterical joy at a means that would rid him of his enemy so simply and certainly. He made the excuse of the Indian friend, and saw Fenton again on Tuesday, giving him an appointment on the island at eleven o'clock on the following Thursday night, and at the same time promising to pay him what he asked at the meeting. By the last post on Wednesday he sent the plans to Warner in disguised handwriting and under a false name and address.
“Fenton suspected this sudden acquiescence. The scamp knew to what a state of impotent fury he had brought his victim. He took a revolver with him, and, having spied out the ground, crossed by the punt, instead of approaching the rendezvous by the causeway. Also, he came an hour and more before he was expected.
“Perhaps you now understand the plan. Sir Andrew intended to alter the gun and leave for the station before ten. Fenton would be killed at eleven, and the blame rest on Warner. No one could suspect the young baronet, who would be in the train at the time of the accident.
“Sir Andrew found the trap, lifted the gun off the supporting props, and drove the outer one a foot deeper into the ground. I could see the marks of his feet, where he had stood while he pushed and twisted the stick through the clay. He replaced the gun, which would now be at an angle to hit a man in the chest or neck. He stepped back, looking to see if there was any sign of the lurking death to alarm a passer-by.
“What happened I can only guess. He may have slipped on the old slabs. But it was enough that he touched the thread, and the trigger, oiled and eased by Warner, jarred off at once. It was in a manner suicide.”
“So that is the explanation,” I said, when he had ended.
“It is partly guess-work, of course,” Peace told me; “but I think you will find that I am not far wrong when Fenton's trial comes on and, to save his neck, he makes a clean breast of his share in the business.”