The Skeleton Key/Chapter 7

by Bernard Capes

 

CHAPTER VII

THE BARON VISITS THE SCENE OF THE CRIME

(From the Bickerdike MS.)

 

I confess that the man's communication, coming on the top of my concern for my friend, fairly, in the first moment of it, took me aghast. The state in which I had found Hugh, that disquieting business of the gun, his insistence on sticking to his weapon—it was inevitable that any mind should instinctively leap to some association between these and a catastrophe so seemingly their corollary in its nature and instrumentality. It was odd, but ever since my meeting with the Baron in Simpson's smoking-room a sense as of some vague fatality had seemed to overcloud me. It was formless, impalpable, but it was there, like that unnerving atmosphere which precedes, according to people who know, an earthquake. But that first sick alarm was not long in dissipating itself in me in a fine scorn. The thing, to my recovered judgment, was simply incredible. Apart from the brutal clumsiness, the unthinking recklessness of such a deed, what was there in my knowledge of my friend to justify such a horrible assumption? Spoilt he was, selfish he was, no doubt, but always the last man in the world to incline to personal violence. A sensitiveness to pain, almost morbid, on account of himself or others, was rather his characteristic; an excess of affection, his charm and his weakness. He could not have done it, of course, for whatever mad reason.

But, as I came to learn the particulars of the tragedy, so far as they were known or guessed, another suspicion, less base though still discomposing, would occur to me. The poor girl, according to all accounts, had been a great beauty; and it appeared probable—from evidence freely volunteered by M. le Baron, who had passed through the copse some short time before the murder must have been committed, and who had seen and spoken with her there—that she was keeping an assignation. With whom? Who could as yet say? But I had too good reason to dread my friend's susceptibility where the adorable feminine was concerned, and I could not forget how the time of the assignation, if such it were, had coincided with that of his leaving the shoot. 'This,' I thought, 'may be as unjustified an assumption as the other; still, for the sake of argument, admit it, and one thing at least is accounted for. With such a wire-strung nature as Hugh's, the consciousness of a guilty intrigue would be quite enough to induce in him that state of recklessness and excitability which had so bothered and perplexed me.'

It was still, in fact, perplexing me at dinner on the night of the murder, when, after the withdrawal of Audrey and the servants, much discussion of the tragic subject took place, and later, when he and I were for a brief time alone together in the billiard-room. It was not so much that he was not shocked and horrified with the rest of us, as that his emotions were expressed in such an extraordinary form. They made him lament one moment, and go into half hysterical laughter the next; now utter raging imprecations against the dastard capable of so damnable a crime, now assert that jealousy was probably responsible for it, and that no man who had not felt jealousy had a right to sit in judgment on a passion which was after all not so much a passion as a demoniac possession. Then he would declare that, the thing being done, it was no good making oneself miserable about it, and rally me on my long face, which, he said, made him feel worse than a hundred murders. The horror of the thing had no doubt unhinged him, coupled with the knowledge that it was through his own carelessness in leaving a loaded gun within reach of temptation that the deed had been made possible. With such a nature as his, that consciousness must have counted for much, though still, and at the same time, I could never quite rid myself of the feeling that, beneath all his expressed remorse and pity, a strange little note of—I will not call it relief, but ease from some long haunting oppression, made itself faintly audible. However, remembering his late promise of confidence to me, I determined to abide in patience its coming, only wondering in the interval what had instigated his remarks on jealousy, and if it were possible that they had been inspired by any suspicion, of the criminal, and if so, on what personal grounds. He came down quite quiet to breakfast the next morning, and from that time onwards was his own rational hospitable self.

Early in the afternoon of that day Sir Calvin came back with the detective, Sergeant Ridgway, in tow. The latter had been retrieved, by good luck, from Antonferry, whither, after the trial, he had returned from Winton to settle for the lodgings he had occupied during the Bank investigations. The General had been fortunate in encountering him at the very moment of his departure, and had at once secured from him, contingent on the receipt of official authority, a promise to undertake the case. A prepaid telegram to Scotland Yard had brought the necessary sanction, and within a couple of hours of its despatch the Sergeant was safe at Wildshott, and already engaged over the preliminaries of the business. Personally, I admit, I felt greatly relieved by his appearance on the scene. A notable writer has somewhat humoured a belief in the fatuity of the professional detective; but that was with a view, I think, to exalt his own incomparable amateur rather than to discredit a singularly capable body of men, having a pretty persistent record of success to justify their being. Intellectuality was at least not absent by inference from this face. When I saw it, I felt that the case was in safe hands, and that henceforth we might, one and all of us, cast whatever burden of personal responsibility had unwittingly overhung our spirits. The Sergeant was installed in the house, and lost no time in getting to work in a reassuring, business-like way. He went in the first instance to view the body, which had been laid on a table in the gun-room, with a policeman—one of two brought over the night before by the Chief Constable, a friend of Sir Calvin's, in person—to watch the door. Thereafter, established in the General's study, he briefly reviewed the evidence of such witnesses as could supply any topical information that bore on the crime—Le Sage, to wit, Hugo himself, Mrs Bingley the housekeeper, and one or two of the servants, including the men who, on their young master's alarmed summons, had first entered the copse to remove the body.

I was present during the whole, I think, of this examination, and for the following reason. It happened that I and the Baron, on his way to the study, met in the hall, when he attacked me, I thought rather impertinently, on a question of punctilio.

'Do you not think, my friend,' he said, 'that under the circumstances it would be decent of us to offer to terminate our visit? Supposing we both, here and now, address Sir Calvin on the subject?'

I was very much annoyed. 'Baron,' I said, 'I am not accustomed to seek advice in matters of conduct, and I certainly shall not do as you propose. Apart from the question of deserting my friend in a crisis, I think that any suggestion of our leaving now would look like a desire to avoid inquiry—which I, for my part, am far from wishing to do—and would bear a very bad complexion. You can act as you like; but it is my intention to see this thing through.'

'O, very well!' he said. 'Then I will speak for myself alone.'

Why should he wish to escape? All my instinctive suspicion of him reawakened on the moment; and I wondered. True, he could not himself have perpetrated the crime; Hugo's evidence would not permit of such a supposition; but could he not be somehow implicated in it as instigator or abettor? I determined then and there to keep a very close observation on M. le Baron.

We entered the room together, since I would not suffer his going in alone to misrepresent me. Sir Calvin was there, with his son and the detective. I saw the last for the first time. He was quite the typical Hawkshaw, and handsome at that—a lithe man of middle height, with a keen, dark, aquiline face, and clean-shaven jaws and chin. I could have thought him a young man for his work and reputation; he did not look more than thirty-five, and might have been less; but about his mental ability, if one could judge by indications, there was no question. A certain rather truculent dandyism in his dress contrasted oddly with this intellectuality of feature; it showed itself a little over-emphatic in the matter of trouser-crease and collar and scarf-pin, and it tilted his black plush Homburg hat, when out of doors, at a slightly theatrical angle. But taste, after all, is a question not of mind but of breeding, and the man who has, like Disraeli, to stand on his head for a living, may be excused a little ostentation in the process. He looked at us both searchingly as we entered.

'This, Sergeant,' said Sir Calvin, 'is the Baron Le Sage, whom I mentioned to you as having encountered the unfortunate young woman in the copse a little before——.'

The detective nodded. 'I should like to ask a question of you, sir.'

Le Sage told what he knew. It was very little, and only of value in so far as it touched upon the evidence of time.

'It must have been a little before half-past two when we met,' he said.

'And shortly after three,' said the detective, turning to Hugo, 'when you came by the same path, sir, and had your little talk with her, like this gentleman?'

'My talk,' said the Baron, smiling, 'was of the briefest. We exchanged but a pleasant word or two, and I passed on.'

'And yours,' said the detective to Hugh, 'was perhaps of a more prolonged sort?'

'It may have been, Sergeant,' was my friend's answer. He was looking pale but composed; and his manner was absolutely frank and unequivocal. 'You see,' said he, 'poor Annie was, after all, one of the household, and there was nothing out of the way in my stopping to speak with her. We may have chatted for ten minutes—I should think no longer—while I put down my gun and lighted a cigarette. I was back at the house by a quarter past three or thereabouts.'

'And you remembered, and returned for your gun?'

'That must have been just about four o'clock.'

'So that the murder, if murder it was, must have been committed some time between 3.15 and 4 p.m.'

'That is so, I suppose.'

The detective stood as if mutely weighing the few facts at his disposition for a moment or two, then turned to the General.

'We shall want evidence of identity, Sir Calvin,' he said. 'Your housekeeper, I suppose, engaged the young woman? Can I see her?'

Mrs Bingley was rung for, and in the interval, while awaiting her appearance, Le Sage approached our host.

'Pardon me, Sir Calvin,' said he; 'but before you proceed any further, would you not prefer that I should withdraw? I cannot but feel that my visit itself is proving untimely, and that it were better that I should relieve you of the embarrassment of——.'

But the General broke in forcibly.

'Not a bit of it! There's nothing to conceal. Damn it, man! Beyond helping this Sergeant what we can to find out the truth, I don't see why the even tenour of our ways need disturb itself by so much as a thought. No, no; you came for chess, and you'll stay for chess!' A sentiment which, while justifying my own attitude, pretty effectually disposed of the Baron's affected, and perhaps interested scruples.

He smiled, with a tiny shrug. 'Well, if I am not in the way!' and addressed the detective; 'the ruling passion, you see, Sergeant Ridgway. Do you play chess?'

'A little,' answered the man, cautious even in his admission. 'It's a great game.'

'It's the game,' said the Baron. 'We'll play, you and I, one of these days, when you're needing some distraction from your labours.'

'Very well, sir' responded the detective civilly, and at that moment Mrs Bingley entered the room.

Wildshott was, by common assent, fortunate in its housekeeper. She was a good soul and a good manager, strict but tolerant, ruling by tact alone. Spare and wiry, her virgin angularity (despite her courtesy title), was of the sort one associates with blessed women in old painted manuscripts. Firmness and patience showed in her capable face, to which agitation had now lent a rather red-eyed pallor. She bowed to Sir Calvin, and faced the detective quietly:—

'You wanted to speak with me, sir?'

'Just a few words,' he answered. 'This young woman's name, Mrs Bingley——?'

'Was Annie Evans, sir.'

'And her age?'

'She was just, by her own statement, turned twenty-three.'

'You have communicated with her relations?'

'No, indeed. She never referred to any, and I have no means of finding them out. Annie was a very reserved girl.'

'But surely, when you engaged her——'

'I did so by advertisement, sir, through the Ladies' Times newspaper. We were in immediate need of an under-housemaid, and there was a difficulty about local girls. I put an advertisement in the paper, as, I had often done before, preferring that method to the agencies, and she answered it. That was about two months ago.'

'And her former employer?'

'That was a Mrs Wilson, sir. She had gone to New Zealand, and left a written character with Annie. It was quite against my custom to take a servant with only a written character; but in this instance I was persuaded to break my rule, the character given was so excellent, and the girl herself so modest and attractive.'

'H'm! Then you saw her before engaging her?'

'I went up to see her at the office of the paper itself by her own appointment, and was so struck by her manner and appearance that I settled with her then and there. She was to come down two days later. To the best of my memory, I never inquired about her people.'

'But she must have spoken of them—received letters?'

'She never spoke of them to my knowledge, or that of her fellow servants, to whom I have put the question. As to letters, Annie certainly did receive one now and again—one or two quite recently; but I have been looking, and can find no trace of any. It would have been just like her funny sensitive ways to destroy every one of them.'

The detective was silent for a moment, his dark scrutinizing eyes fixed on the speaker's face, as if he were pondering some significance, to him, in the answer.

'What became of the written character?' he asked presently.

'I returned it to her, sir. It is customary to do so.'

'In case she should want to use it again? That being so, I should have thought she would have kept it?'

'Yes, sir.'

'But you have not come across it?'

'It may be in her boxes. I have not looked.'

'You and I must overhaul those boxes, Mrs Bingley. Did you think, now, of making any inquiries about this Mrs Wilson?'

'No, it would have been useless; she had already sailed for New Zealand.'

'Do you remember her address?'

'She wrote, so far as I can recollect, from the Savoy Hotel.'

Sergeant Ridgway took an envelope from his pocket, and making a note on the back of it, returned it into keeping.

'Well, you can leave that to me,' he said, and, resting his right elbow in the palm of the other hand, softly caressed his chin, bending an intent look on his witness.

'Now, ma'am,' he said. 'I want to ask you a particular question. Has Annie Evans's conduct, while in this service, always continued to justify you in your first good opinion of her?'

'Always,' answered the housekeeper with emphasis. 'She was a thoroughly good straightforward girl, and during the short time she was here I have never had any trouble with her that was of her own procuring.'

'Will you tell me quite what you mean by that?'

'Well, sir, she could not help being pretty and admired, and if it led to some quarrels among the men on her account, the blame was theirs, and never in the smallest degree to be charged to her conduct with them. She always did her best to keep them at a distance.'

'O, quarrels, were there? Can you tell me of any particular quarrel, now?'

'I could——' began the housekeeper, and stopped.

'Come, Mrs Bingley,' said her master. 'You mast speak out without fear or favour.'

'I know it, sir,' said the housekeeper, distressed. 'I will try to do my duty.'

'Hey!' cried the General. 'Of course you must. You wouldn't want to risk hanging the wrong man? What particular quarrel—hey?'

'It was between Mr Cleghorn and the Baron's gentleman, sir.'

'Cleghorn, eh? Great Scott! Was he sweet on the girl?'

'I think for some time he had greatly admired her, sir. And then Mr Cabanis came; and being a young man, with ways different from ours——' again she hesitated.

'Out with it!' cried Sir Calvin. 'Don't keep anything back.'

'On the night before—before the deed,' said the housekeeper, with an effort, 'Annie had come down into the kitchen, I was told, red with fury over Mr Cabanis having tried to kiss her. She had boxed his ears for him, she said, and he had looked murder at her for it. He came down himself later on, I understand, and there was a fine scene between the two men. It was renewed the next day at dinner, when Annie wasn't there, and in the end, after having come to blows and been separated, they both went out, Cabanis first, and Mr Cleghorn a little later. That is the truth, sir, and now may I go?'

I think we were all sorry for the Baron; it appeared so obvious whither the trend of the detective's inquiries must henceforth carry him. But he sat quite quiet, with only a smile on his face.

'Louis is not vindictive,' was the sole thing he contented himself with saying.

Sir Calvin turned to the detective. 'Do you need Mrs Bingley any more?'

'Not for the present,' answered the Sergeant, and the housekeeper left the room. I had expected from him, on her disappearance, some significant look or gesture, betokening his acceptance of the inevitable conclusion; but he made no such sign, and merely resumed his business conduct of the case. He knew better than we, no doubt, that in crime the most obvious is often the most unreliable.

'We must find the girl's relations, if possible, Sir Calvin,' he said. 'You can leave that to me, however. What I would advise, if her boxes yield no clue, would be an advertisement in the papers.'

An examination of some of the servants ensued upon this; but beyond the fact of their supplying corroborative testimony as to the quarrel, their evidence was of little interest, and I omit it here. The Baron disappeared during the course of the inquiry, so secretively that I think I was the only one who noticed his going. At the end the detective expressed a desire to examine the scene of the crime. If one of us, he said, would conduct him there, he would be satisfied and would ask no more. He did not want a crowd. I ventured to volunteer, and was accepted. Sir Calvin had looked towards his son; but Hugh, with reason sufficient, had declined to go. He had sat throughout the inquiry, after giving his own evidence, perfectly still, and with a sort of white small smile on his lips. Thinking my own thoughts, I was sorry for him.

The Sergeant and I made for the coppice. Passing the constable at the gun-room door, he nodded to him. 'That's a poor thing inside,' he said, as we went on. 'What a lot of trouble she'd save if she could speak! Well, I suppose that him that did it thinks she's got her deserts.' 'I hope he'll get his,' I answered. 'Ah!' he agreed, 'I hope he will.' We turned a bend as we came near the fatal beech-tree—and there was the Baron before us!

The detective stopped with a smart exclamation, then went on slowly.

'Doing a little amateur detective work on your own, sir?' he asked sarcastically.

'I was considering, my friend,' answered the Baron. 'It becomes interesting to me, you see, since my man is involved.'

'Who said he was involved, sir?'

'Ah! Who, now? You can see very distinctly, Sergeant, where the body lay—just the one ugly token. No signs of a struggle, I think; and the ground too hard to have left a trace of footprints. But I won't disturb you at your work.'

'I wouldn't, sir,' said the detective pretty bluntly. 'You can undertake, I fancy, to leave it all to me.'

'I'm sure I can,' answered the Baron pleasantly, and he went, off towards the house, humming softly to himself a little French air.

'Who is he?' asked the detective, when the odd creature was out of hearing.

'I know little more about him than you do,' I answered; 'and Sir Calvin's acquaintance with him is, I think, almost as casual as my own. We both met him abroad at different times. He may be a person of distinction, or he may be just an adventurer for all I know to the contrary.'

'Well,' said the officer, 'whoever he is, I don't want him meddling in my business, and I shall have to tell Sir Calvin so.'

'Do,' I said. 'Chess is the Baron's business, and it's that that he's here for.'

But I kept my private suspicion, while duly noting as much as might or might not be implied in Le Sage's curious interest in the scene of the crime. No doubt the last thing he had expected was our sudden descent upon him there.