"That theory is plausible enough on the surface, but only on the surface. For the same reason that establishes Miss Heredith's innocence, the murderer could not have escaped by running down the staircase, because there was not sufficient time to get past the people who had been alarmed by the scream. But if the murderer was a man, it is just possible that he might have darted out of the bedroom and dropped over the balusters, before the dining-room door was opened, getting clear away without being seen by anybody—not even by Miss Heredith. An examination of the staircase of the left wing has convinced me that this feat was possible. The staircase has a very sharp turn in the middle, which has the effect of hiding the top of the staircase from the bottom, and the bottom from the top. The leap is not so dangerous as the one from the window, because it is not so high. It is probably six feet less, allowing for the flooring beneath and the higher window opening above. The spot by the foot of the staircase where the murderer might have dropped is well screened, even from the view of anybody near the bottom of the staircase, by some tall tree shrubs in tubs, and some armour.

"But there is another and likelier way by which the murderer might have escaped. I saw the possibility of it as soon as I examined the upstairs portion of the wing in which the murder had been committed. There are several places where the murderer could have hidden until chance afforded the opportunity of escape. He would avoid seeking shelter in any of the adjoining bedrooms, because he would realize that they would be searched immediately the murder was discovered, but there are excellent temporary places of concealment behind the tapestry hangings, or in the thick folds of the heavy velvet curtains at the entrance to the corridor, or in the small press or wardrobe which is built right over the head of the stairs. Suppose that the murderer, after firing the shot, dashed out into the corridor with the idea of escaping down the stairs. He hears the guests coming upstairs, and realizes that he is too late. He instinctively looks round for some place to hide, sees the curtains, and slips behind them. From their folds he watches the guests troop along the corridor to the murdered woman's bedroom. He could touch them as they passed, but they cannot see him. Then, while they are all congregated round the doorway of Mrs. Heredith's bedroom, he emerges on the other side of the curtains, slips down the staircase, and gets out of the house without meeting anybody."

"But all the guests did not go upstairs," observed Captain Stanhill, who was following his companion's remarks with close attention. "Some stayed in the dining-room. Tufnell, the butler, made that quite clear when you were examining him this morning."

"Yes—a few hysterical females cowering and whimpering with fear as far away from the door as possible," retorted Merrington contemptuously. "The butler made that clear also."

"But the servants would also have heard the scream and the shot," pursued Captain Stanhill earnestly. "Is it not likely that some of them would have been clustered near the foot of the staircase, wondering what had happened?"

"No," replied Merrington. "Servants are even more cowardly than they are curious. They would be too frightened to congregate at the foot of the staircase, for fear the murderer might come leaping downstairs and discharge another shot in their midst. It is possible, however, that the murderer remained hidden upstairs for some time longer—perhaps until the butler left the house to go to the village for the police, and Musard took all the male guests downstairs to make another search of the house. He would then have an exceedingly favourable opportunity of slipping away unobserved. It is true that the upstairs portion of the wing was searched before that time arrived, but the search was conducted by amateurs who knew nothing about such a task, and would probably overlook such hiding-places as I have indicated."

It appeared to Captain Stanhill that Superintendent Merrington, instead of always adopting his theory of fitting the crime to the circumstances, was sometimes in danger of reversing the process.

"From what you say it seems to me that it is very difficult to tell how the murderer escaped," he remarked.

"It is even more difficult to say how the murderer, after entering the moat-house, found his way to Mrs. Heredith's bedroom in order to murder her. The house is a big rambling place, consisting of a main building and two wings. It would be impossible for you or me or any other stranger to find our way about it without previous knowledge of the place, unless we had a plan. How, then, did the murderer accomplish it? How did he know that Mrs. Heredith slept in the left wing? How did he know that he would find her alone in that wing while everybody else was downstairs at the dinner-table?"

Again, it seemed to Captain Stanhill that Merrington's detective methods had a tendency to multiply difficulties rather than clear them up.

"Perhaps he was provided with a plan of the house," he suggested.

"That answers only one of my points. In my consideration of this aspect of the case, two possible solutions occurred to me. It is impossible for any of the guests to have committed the crime, because they were all downstairs at the time, but it is just possible one of them may have instigated it."

"It is incredible to me that a guest staying in a gentleman's house could plot such a crime," said Captain Stanhill.

"Nothing is incredible in crime," replied Merrington. "I've no illusions about human nature. It is capable of much worse things than that. Strange things can happen in a big country-house like this, filled with a large party of young people of both sexes—flirtations, intrigues, and worse still."

"But not murder, as a general rule," commented Captain Stanhill, with a trace of sarcasm in his mild tones.

"You cannot lay down general rules about murder. An unbalanced human being, under the influence of hatred, jealousy, or revenge, is no more amenable to the rules of society than a tiger. But I do not think that this crime was instigated by one of the guests, because in that case it would probably have been arranged to be committed later in the evening, when the members of the house-party were at the house of the Weynes, and the moat-house was occupied only by the servants. Still, I do not intend to lose sight of the hypothesis. Another possibility is that one of the servants was in league with the murderer. A third possibility is that Mrs. Heredith may have brought in the murderer herself."

"What do you mean?"

"She may have had a lover, and the lover may have murdered her."

"Oh, impossible!" Captain Stanhill repelled the idea with an instinctive gesture of disgust. "It is too monstrous to suppose that a happily married young wife would be carrying on an intrigue three months after her marriage."

"More monstrous things happen every day—human nature being what it is," retorted Merrington coolly. "You must remember that we know practically nothing about her. The people who knew her in London left the house before they could be questioned; Miss Heredith and her brother have no knowledge of her past; and her husband is too ill to tell us anything. Her marriage was apparently a hasty love match—a love match so far as young Heredith was concerned. So far, we have only two slender facts to guide us in our estimate of her, which are contained in the two letters in which young Heredith announced his marriage to his people. According to those statements, she was an orphan who was earning her living as a war clerk in the Government department in which young Heredith held his appointment. That does not carry us very far. During her brief life at the moat-house she seems to have been reticent about her earlier life. Miss Heredith is not the type of woman to have questioned her, and, apparently, she vouchsafed no information. An examination of her boxes and her writing-table has brought to light nothing in the way of writing or correspondence to help us. Such a girl—a bachelor girl in London in war-time—may have had passages in her past life of which her husband knew nothing—passages which may have an important bearing on her murder. Not until we have a thorough knowledge of her antecedents and her past life can we hope to pierce the hidden motives which have led to this murder. It is there, in my opinion, that we must seek for the clue to this strange murder, and it is to that effort I shall devote my energies as soon as I return to London. Until those facts are brought to light we are merely groping in the dark."



CHAPTER X

In accordance with Merrington's instructions, Caldew devoted a considerable portion of the morning seeking information among the moat-house guests. But few of them showed any inclination to talk about the murder. Many of the women were too upset to be seen, and the men had plainly no desire to be mixed up in such a terrible affair by giving interviews to detectives. Everybody was anxious to get away as speedily as possible, and Caldew was compelled to pursue his inquiries amongst groups of hurrying people, flustered servants, and village conveyances laden with luggage. Most of the departing guests replied to his questions as briefly as possible, and gave their London addresses with obvious reluctance; the few who were willing to aid the cause of justice could throw very little light on the London life of the murdered girl. Even those who had been acquainted with her before her marriage seemed to know very little about her.

Caldew finished his inquiries by midday. By that time most of the guests had departed from the moat-house and were on their way to London. Superintendent Merrington and Captain Stanhill were in the library examining the servants. Sergeant Lumbe had gone by train to Tibblestone to sift the story of the suspicious stranger who had descended on that remote village during the previous night.

It wanted an hour to lunch-time, and Caldew decided to spend the time by making a few investigations on his own account before cycling over to Chidelham in the afternoon to see the Weynes.

Caldew had not been impressed with Merrington's handling of the case. Subordinates rarely are impressed with the qualities of those placed over them in authority. They generally imagine they could do better if they had the same opportunities. Caldew was no exception to that rule. It seemed to him that Merrington lacked finesse, and was out of touch with modern methods of criminal investigation. He had been spoilt by too much success, by too much newspaper flattery, by too many jaunts with Royalty. No man could act as sheep-dog for Royalty and retain skill as a detective. That kind of professional work was fatal for the intelligence. Merrington had a great reputation behind him, and his knowledge of European criminals was probably unequalled, but his methods of investigating the moat-house murder suggested that he was no longer one of the world's greatest detectives, if, indeed, he had ever deserved recognition in their ranks. Caldew recalled that his fame rested chiefly on his wide experience rather than on the more subtle deductive methods of modern criminology. It was said in Scotland Yard that when Merrington was at the height of his reputation, twenty years before, his knowledge of London criminals and their methods was so extensive that he could in most cases identify the criminal by merely looking at his handiwork.

As a modern criminologist, Caldew believed that the less a detective intruded his own personality into his investigations the better for his chances of success. He did not think that the loud officialism of Merrington was likely to solve such a deep, subtle crime as the murder of Violet Heredith, and, consequently, he had the chance for which he had waited so long. It now remained for him to prove that he could do better than Merrington. He had sufficient confidence in his own abilities to welcome the opportunity, but at the same time he believed that he was confronted with a crime which would tax all his resources as a detective to unravel.

Like Merrington, he had been struck by the strangeness of the murder. All the circumstances were unusual, and quite outside his previous experience of big crimes. He had also come to the conclusion that the ease with which the murderer had found his way into the moat-house, and afterwards escaped, pointed to an intimate knowledge of the place.

It would be too much to say that Caldew and Merrington reached different conclusions by the same road. Up to a certain point their independent deductions from the more obvious facts of the case were alike, as was inevitable. In every crime there are circumstances and events which are as finger-posts, pointing the one way to the experienced observer. But their subsequent deductions from the outstanding facts branched widely, perhaps because the younger detective did not read so much into circumstances as Merrington. From the same facts they had reached different theories about the murder. Merrington, by a process of minute and careful deductions which he had placed before the Chief Constable, had convinced himself that the key to the murder and the murderer was to be found in London; Caldew believed that the solution of the mystery lay near the scene of the events, and perhaps in the house where the murder was committed.

Caldew was aware that he could have given no satisfactory reason for holding that belief, apart from the point that the murder had been committed by somebody who knew the moat-house sufficiently well to get in and out of the place without being seen. But that point was open to the explanation that the criminal might have provided himself with a plan of the house. Nevertheless, the impression had entered his mind so strongly that he could not have shaken it off if he had tried. But he did not try. He had sufficient imagination to be aware that intuition, in crime detection, is sometimes worth more than the most elaborate deductions.

For the rest, all his speculations about the crime were affected by the trinket he had found in the bedroom on the night of the murder. But the discovery and subsequent disappearance of that clue, as he believed it to be, had not led him very far as yet. He felt himself in the position of a palaeontologist who is called upon to reproduce the structure of an extinct prehistoric animal from a footprint in sandstone. The vanished trinket was a starting-point, and no more. It was a possible hypothesis that the person who had dropped the stone and entered the death-chamber in search of it was the murderer, but so far it was incapable of demonstration or proof. As an isolated fact, it was useless, and brought him no nearer the solution of the mystery. But, on the other hand, it was an undoubted fact, and, for that reason, was dependent upon other facts for its existence. It was his task to find out who had dropped the trinket in the bedroom and subsequently returned for it during his own brief absence downstairs. To establish those essential kindred facts was, he believed, to lay hands on the murderer of Violet Heredith.

Caldew walked thoughtfully from the moat-house down to the village, intent on commencing his own independent investigations into the crime. If the solution of the mystery lay near the scene, as he believed, it was possible that some clue might be picked up among the villagers, to whom the daily doings of the folk in "the big house" were events of the first magnitude, and who might, presumably, be supposed to know anything which was likely to throw light on the obscure motive for the crime. It was for that reason he directed his footsteps towards the fountain head of gossip in an English village—the inn. He flattered himself he would be able to extract more local information from the patrons of the place than any other detective could hope to do. To begin with, he was a Sussex man and a native of the village, and since his return, after so many years' absence, he had spent his evenings at the inn renewing old associations and talking to the companions of his boyhood.

A week's renewed village life had taught him the ways of the place and the war-time drinking customs of the inhabitants. Constrained by recent legislation to compress their convivial intercourse into extremely limited periods, the village tradesmen, and a fair proportion of the surrounding farm labourers and shepherds, had fallen into the habit of assembling at the inn at midday, to discuss the hard times and drink the sour weak "war beer" forced on patriotic Britons as an exigent war measure.

Caldew entered a side door which opened into a small snuggery, divided from the tap-room by a wooden partition. It was here that the regular cronies and select patrons of the establishment sat in comfortable seclusion to discuss the crops, the weather, and market prices in the broad Sussex dialect, which Caldew, from the force of old association, unconsciously fell into again when he was with them.

The room was nearly full, but his appearance threw a marked restraint on the group of assembled countrymen. The conversation, which had obviously been about the murder, ceased instantly as he entered and seated himself on one of the forms placed against the partition. The innkeeper, who was standing behind the bar in his shirt sleeves, nodded uneasily in response to his friendly salutation, but the customers awkwardly avoided his glance by staring stolidly in front of them. Caldew attempted to dispel their reserve with a friendly remark, but no reply was forthcoming. It was obvious that the patrons of the inn wanted neither his conversation nor company. One after another, they finished their beer and walked out of the inn with the slow deliberate movements of the Sussex peasant.

Caldew had not allowed for the change the murder had effected on the village mind. His familiar relations with the inn customers had changed overnight. He was no longer the former village lad, returned to his native village, and welcomed from his old association with the place, but a being invested with the dread powers and majesty of the law, from which no man might deem himself safe.

Caldew walked out of the snuggery and opened a door at the side of the house. It opened into a billiard room—a surprising novelty in an English country inn, and the outcome of a piece of enterprise on the part of the landlord, who had picked up a small table cheap at a sale, and installed it in the clubroom, hoping to profit thereby. Again Caldew was conscious of the same distinct air of constraint immediately he entered. Two or three men who were talking and laughing loudly became as mute as though their vocal organs had been suddenly smitten with paralysis. The village butcher, who was at the billiard table in the act of attempting some complicated stroke, stopped abruptly with his cue in mid air, and gazed at the detective with open mouth and a look of apprehension on his florid face, as though he expected instant accusation and arrest for the moat-house murder.

With an irritated appreciation of his changed status in village eyes, Caldew left the inn and walked home for a meal before setting forth to Chidelham to interview Mrs. Weyne.

There was a strong smell of soap suds in his brother-in-law's house, and a vision of his sister's broad back, in vigorous motion over a steaming wash-tub in the kitchen, indicated that she was in the throes of her weekly wash. She ceased her labours at the sound of footsteps, and turned round.

"Oh, it's you, Tom. Come for a bite to eat? Jest sit you down, and I'll have dinner on the table in no time. I got something good for you. Old Upden, the shepherd, brought me a nice rabbit this mornin', and I've stewed it. It's the last one we'll get, I expect. Upden was telling me he ain't going to snare no more, because the boys steal his snares, which ain't no joke, with copper wire at five shillings a pound."

Caldew took a seat at the table, and watched his sister dish up the dinner. As Sergeant Lumbe's income was not sufficient to permit of all the refinements of civilized life, such as a separate room for dining, the family midday dinner was taken in the kitchen, which was the common living room. Mrs. Lumbe's preparations for the meal were prompt and effective. She carried the tub of clothes outside, opened the window to let out the steam, laid knives and forks and plates on the deal table, then put a liberal portion of stewed rabbit into each plate out of the pot which was steaming on the side of the stove. Dinner was then ready, and brother and sister commenced their meal.

Caldew ate in silence, and his sister glanced at him wistfully at intervals. She had no children of her own, and she had a feeling of admiration for the brother she had mothered as a boy, who had gone to the great city and become a London detective. From her point of view he had achieved great fame and distinction, and she cherished in her workbox some newspaper clippings of crime cases in which his name had been favourably mentioned by friendly reporters. She hoped he would be successful in finding the moat-house murderer. She would have liked to question him about the case, but she stood a little in awe of him and his London ways.

"What's the best way to Chidelham, Kate?" asked Caldew, as he rose from the table. "There used to be a footpath across by Dormer's farm which cut off a couple of miles. Is it still open?"

"It's still open, Tom. Old Dormer tried to get it closed, and went to law about it, but he lost. Be you going across to Chidelham?"

"Yes, I shall ride over on my bicycle this afternoon. Do you know where the Weynes live?"

"The Weynes? Oh, you mean the writing chap that bought Billing's place. Their house stands by itself a mile out of the village, just afore you come to Green Patch Hill."

"Thanks. I know Billing's place very well, but I wasn't aware that he had sold it. I'd better be getting along. It's a good long ride."

"What be you goin' there for, Tom?" asked Mrs. Lumbe, with keen curiosity. "About this case?"

"Yes," replied Caldew shortly.

"Have you found out anything yet, Tom?" pursued his sister earnestly, her curiosity overcoming her awe of her clever brother. "Jem was telling me before he went to Tibblestone that a ter'ble gre'at detective come down from Lunnon this mornin', and was stirrin' up things proper. Jem says he's a detective what travels about with the King, and 'e's got letters to his name because of that. Is he on the tracks of the murderer yet, Tom?"

"No, and he's not likely to, as far as I can see," said her brother a little bitterly.

"Dear, dear, that's a pity, for it's a ter'ble thing, and an awful end for the young lady. Jem came home all of a tremble like last night with the ghastly sight of her corpse and I had to give him a drop of spirits to help him to sleep. We was a talkin' about it in bed, and wond'ring who could 'ave done it. Nobody hereabouts, for I'm sure there's nobody in the village would hurt a fellow creature. Besides, the folk at the big house is too respected for a living soul to think of harming them."

"They are popular with everybody, are they?" said Caldew, sitting down again with the realization that he was likely to gather as much information about the Heredith family from his sister as he could obtain anywhere else.

"Oh, yes," replied his sister. "It's only nat'ral they should be. Sir Philip is a good landlord, and he and Miss Heredith are very generous to folk."

"Is Philip Heredith well-liked in the district?"

"He's been away so long that folk don't know much about him. But I never heard anybody say anything against him. He's different from Sir Philip, but he seems gentle and kind."

"He used to be a quiet and solitary little chap years ago," remarked Caldew. "I remember climbing a tree in Monk's Hill wood for a bird's nest for him. He couldn't climb himself because of his lameness."

"It doesn't seem like a Heredith to be small and lame," said Mrs. Lumbe thoughtfully. "I've heard those who ought to know declare that Miss Heredith never forgave his mother for bringing him into the world with a lame foot. The servants at the big house say Mr. Phil has always been ter'ble sensitive about his lameness. That's what made him so lonely in his ways, though he was rare fond of animals and birds. We was all taken aback when we heard of his marriage. He always seemed so shy of the young ladies. The only girl I ever knowed him to take any notice of was Hazel Rath. I have met them walking through the woods together."

"Who is Hazel Rath?"

"The daughter of the moat-house housekeeper. She came to the moat-house with her mother nearly ten years agone. She was a pretty little thing. Miss Heredith was very fond of her, and sent her to school. Mr. Philip was fond of her too, in his way, though, of course, there could never a'been anything between them. But nobody hereabouts ever expected him to marry a London young lady."

"Why not?" asked Caldew.

"The Herediths have always married in the county, as far back as can be counted. It was thought Miss Heredith would make a match between Mr. Philip and the daughter of Sir Harry Ravenworth, of the Wilcotes. The Ravenworths are the second family in the county, and well-to-do. 'Twould a'been a most suitable match, as folk here agreed. But 'twas not to be, more's the pity."

Caldew nodded absently. His original interest in his sister's talk was relapsing into boredom because it seemed unlikely to lead to anything of the slightest importance about the murder.

"The young lady he did marry was not a real lady, so I've heard say," continued Mrs. Lumbe, placidly pursuing the train of her reflections. "She didn't come much into the village, but when she did she walked about as though she were bettermost, and everybody else dirt beneath her feet. But I have heard that she had to earn her own living in London before Mr. Philip fell in love with her pretty face. If that's the truth, she gave herself enough airs afterwards, and did all she could to make Miss Heredith feel she'd put her nose out of joint, as the saying is."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Caldew sharply, with all his senses again alert.

"Well, you know, Tom, Miss Heredith has been the mistress of the moat-house and the great lady of the county since Lady Heredith died. But when Mr. Philip brought his young wife down from London that was all changed. The young lady soon let her see that she wasn't going to be ruled by her, and didn't care for her or her ways. They do say it was a great trial to Miss Heredith, though she tried not to let anybody know it."

"Where did you learn this?" Caldew asked abruptly.

"Lord, Tom, how short you pick me up! Milly Saker, who's parlourmaid at the moat-house, told me in the strictest confidence, because she knew I wouldn't tell anybody. And I wouldn't tell anybody but you, Tom. She told me from the very first that she didn't think the two ladies would get on together. They were so different, Milly said, and she was certain Miss Heredith didn't think the young lady good enough to marry into the Heredith family."

"Did she tell you if they had ever quarrelled?"

"I asked her that, and she said no. Miss Heredith is always the lady, and she wouldn't lower herself by quarrelling with anybody, least of all with anybody she did not consider as good a lady as herself. But Milly says she was sorely tried at times. Milly thought it would end up in her leaving the moat-house and marrying her old sweetheart, Mr. Musard, who's just returned from his foreign travels. Perhaps you've seen him."

"Yes, I've seen him," said Caldew. "So he is her old sweetheart, is he?"

"So folk used to say," returned Mrs. Lumbe. "I remember there was some talk of a match between them when I was a girl, but nothing came of it. It's my opinion that Miss Heredith must have refused him then because of his wild days, and he took to his travels to cure his broken heart. But they still think a lot of each other, as is plain for everybody to see, and go out for walks together arm in arm. So perhaps it will all come right in the end."

With this comfortable doctrine of life, based on her perusal of female romances, Mrs. Lumbe got up from her seat to clear the table.

"I trust it will," said her brother, but his remark had nothing to do with the triumph of true love in the last chapter.

He left the room to get his bicycle to ride to Chidelham.



CHAPTER XI

On his way to Chidelham, Caldew again pondered over the murder, and for the first time seriously asked himself whether Miss Heredith could have committed the crime. He had glanced at that possibility before, and had practically dismissed it on the score of lack of motive, but his sister's story of the differences between Miss Heredith and her nephew's wife supplied that deficiency in a startling degree. In reviewing the whole of the circumstances by the light of the information his sister had given him, it now seemed to him that Miss Heredith fitted into the crime in a remarkable way.

The most important fact leading to that inference was that she alone, of all the inmates of the moat-house the previous night, was out of the dining-room when the murder was committed. That supposition took no cognizance of the servants, but Caldew had all along eliminated the servants in his consideration of the crime. In the next place, it supplied an explanation for the disappearance of the bar brooch from the bedroom. In all likelihood the butler had first acquainted his mistress with his discovery of the unlocked staircase door, and she, realizing where she had dropped her brooch, had seized upon the opportunity to request Musard to call the detective downstairs and tell him about the door. In his absence she returned to the bedroom for the brooch.

This theory seemed plausible enough at first blush, but as Caldew examined it closely several objections arose in his mind. The hidden motive of the crime, as innocently laid bare by his sister, was strong, but was it strong enough to impel a woman like Miss Heredith, with the rigid principles of her birth, breeding, and caste, and a woman, moreover, who had spent her life in good works, to commit such an atrocious murder? Caldew considered this point long and thoughtfully. With his keener imagination he differed from Merrington by relying to some extent on external impressions, and he could not shake off his first impression of Miss Heredith as a woman of exceptionally good type. He had to admit to himself that her graciousness and dignity were not the qualities usually associated with a murderer. Religion, hypocrisy, smugness, plausibility; these were the commonest counterfeit qualities of criminals; not dignity, worth, and pride.

There was, of course, the possibility that Miss Heredith, grown imperious with her long unquestioned sway at the moat-house, had quarrelled with the young wife, and committed the murder in a sudden gust of passion. The most unlikely murders had been committed under the sway of impulse. Caldew recalled that Miss Heredith had been the last person to see the murdered woman alive, and nobody except herself knew what had occurred at that interview. It might be that the young wife had said something to her which rankled so deeply that she conceived the idea of murdering her.

Caldew, on reaching this stage of his reasoning, shook his head doubtfully. He had to admit to himself that such a theory did not ring true. If Miss Heredith had been maddened by some insult at the afternoon's interview, she was far more likely to have killed Mrs. Heredith immediately than have waited until dinner-time. And, if she had committed the murder, why had she gone about it in the manner likeliest to lead to discovery, openly leaving her guests a few minutes before, and allowing herself to be seen afterwards descending the staircase? Even the veriest neophyte in crime usually displayed some of the caution of self-preservation.

But Caldew was too experienced in criminal investigation to reject a theory merely because it was contrary to experience. There existed presumptions for suspicion of Miss Heredith which at least warranted further inquiry. And, thinking over these presumptions, he arrived at the additional conclusion that the theory of her guilt could also be made to account for the puzzle of the open window in Mrs. Heredith's bedroom. Caldew believed that the open window had some bearing on the crime. His first impression had been that the murderer had entered and escaped by that means. The Virginia creeper to which Weyling had directed attention that morning had strengthened that belief, in spite of Merrington's opinion that the plant would not bear a man's weight. But now it seemed to him that Miss Heredith might have opened the window for the purpose of throwing the revolver into the moat so that it should not be found. He determined to investigate that possibility as soon as he returned to the moat-house.

He reached his destination only to learn that Mr. and Mrs. Weyne had motored over to the moat-house to pay their condolences to the family. He remounted his bicycle and rode back as fast as he could, chagrined to think that he had wasted the best part of an afternoon in a fruitless errand.

It was evening when he reached Heredith again, and rode through the woods towards the moat-house. It looked deserted in the gathering twilight. A fugitive gleam of departing sunshine fell on the bronze and blood-red chrysanthemums in the circular beds, but the shadows were lengthening across the lawn, and the mist from the green waters of the moat was creeping up the stained red walls.

His ring at the front door was answered by the pretty parlourmaid who had been dusting the hall before breakfast. He recognized in Milly Saker a village playmate of nearly twenty years ago, and he recalled that it was she who had told his sister of the difference which had existed between Miss Heredith and her nephew's wife.

Milly greeted the detective with a coquettish smile of recognition.

"How are you?" she said. "You wouldn't look at me this morning. You seemed as if you didn't want to recognize old friends."

Caldew's mind was too preoccupied to meet these rural pleasantries in the same spirit.

"Is Miss Heredith in?" he asked, stepping into the hall.

"I shouldn't be here talking to you if she was," replied the girl pertly. "She's gone to the village in the motorcar to meet Mr. Musard. She's just got a telegram to say he's coming back."

"I thought he was going to France," said Caldew.

"Well, he's not. The telegram says he's not. So Miss Heredith's gone to meet him by the evening train. Tufnell's out too. I don't know where he's poked to, but I shan't cry my eyes out if he never comes back."

"Have Mr. and Mrs. Weyne been here?"

"Yes. They drove over in their car, and saw Miss Heredith and Sir Philip. They weren't here very long."

"Where are Superintendent Merrington and Captain Stanhill?"

"In the library. They come in about an hour ago. The big gentleman has to go back to London to-night—I heard him say so. A good riddance too. He had all the servants in the library this morning, bullying them dreadfully."

"What did he say to you?" asked Caldew, with a smile.

"Nothing," responded the girl promptly, "except what he said early this morning, when he stopped me in the hall here, and put his great ugly hand under my chin, and told me he'd have a talk with me by-and-by. But he didn't get the chance, because I was over in the village all the morning with my mother, who's been ill. But he gave all the other girls such a time that they haven't done talking of it yet. Gwennie Harden, who sleeps with me, says he must have thought one of us murdered Mrs. Heredith, and the cook was so angry with the questions he asked her that she was going to give a month's warning on the spot, but old Tufnell talked her over, saying that it was only done in the way of duty, no personal reflection being intended. Tufnell begged her pardon for what she'd had to put up with, and the cook granted it, and there the matter ended. But they do say that Mrs. Rath—that's the housekeeper—came out of the library looking fit to drop. But Hazel Rath didn't go into the library, although she stayed here last night, and has been with her mother all day. Favouritism, I call it. Why should they put all us servants through our facings, and leave her alone?"

The mention of Hazel Rath's name recalled to Caldew's mind the information his sister had given him about the early association between her and Philip Heredith. But the import of that statement, and the significance of the piece of news Milly Saker had just given him, were not made clear to him until later. At the moment his thoughts were fixed on the idea of testing his new theory about the open window while Miss Heredith was absent. As he turned away, he asked the girl where Sir Philip was.

"He's sitting with Mr. Phil," was the reply.

"I suppose there is nobody upstairs in the left wing?" he added.

"Nobody but the corpse," responded Milly, with a slight shiver. "Miss Heredith's had her bedroom shifted. Last night she slept downstairs, but this morning she gave orders for the white bedroom in the right wing to be prepared for her. I reckon she wants to get as far away from it as possible, and I don't blame her."

Caldew proceeded upstairs, and entered the death-chamber in the silent wing. On his way back from Chidelham he had picked up a round stone, which he now took from his pocket, intending to throw it from the window, and mark the spot where it fell into the moat. He opened the window, and looked out across the garden. The distance to the moat was much farther than he had imagined; so great, indeed, that his own shot at the water fell short by several feet. It was impossible that Miss Heredith could have accomplished such a remarkable feat as to hurl a revolver across the intervening space between the window and the moat. No woman could throw so far and so straight.

This unforeseen obstacle rather disconcerted Caldew at first, but on looking out of the window again it seemed to him, by the lay of the house, that the window of Miss Heredith's bedroom was closer to the moat than the window at which he was standing. As Miss Heredith had transferred her bedroom to the other wing, he decided to go into the room and see if he were right. He still clung to his new idea that the revolver had been thrown into the moat, although his altered view that it might have been thrown from Miss Heredith's window meant the abandonment of his other assumption that the disposal of the revolver by that means accounted for the open window in Mrs. Heredith's bedroom. Caldew realized as he left the room that the question of the open window still remained to be solved. What he did not realize was that he was distorting the facts of the case in order to establish the possibility of his own theory.

The door of the room which Miss Heredith had occupied was ajar. He pushed it open and entered. There was within that deserted and desolate air which a room so quickly takes on when the occupant has vacated it. The heavier furniture and the bed remained to demonstrate the ugliness of utility after the accessories and adjuncts of luxury had been carried away.

The blind was down and the room in partial darkness. Caldew went to the window, raised the blind, and looked out. The distance to the moat was appreciably nearer, compared with the window of the room he had just left, but the distance was still considerable.

As Caldew turned from the window, with the reluctant conviction that he had been nursing an untenable theory, a last ray of sunshine shot through the open window, causing the dust he had raised by his entrance to quiver and gyrate like a host of mad bacilli dancing a jig. The shaft of light, falling athwart the dismantled toilet-table, brought something else into view—a tiny fragment of gold chain dangling from the polished satinwood drawer.

Caldew pulled the drawer open. Inside was a lady's thin gold neck chain, with a bundle of charms and trinkets attached to the end, which had evidently been left behind and forgotten. He glanced at the chain carelessly, and was about to replace it in the drawer, when his eye was arrested by one of the trinkets. It was a small image, not much over an inch in length; a squatting heathen god, with crossed arms and a satyr's face—a wonderful example of savage carving in miniature.

It was not the perfection of the carving or the unusual nature of the ornament which attracted Caldew's attention, but the material, of which it was composed, a clear almost transparent stone, with the faintest possible tinge of green. Holding it in the sunlight, Caldew was able to detect one or two minute black flecks in the stone. There was no doubt about it—the image was of the same peculiar material as the trinket he had seen in the murdered woman's room the previous night.

As he stood there examining the charm, the murmur of voices not far away fell on his ears. Looking cautiously out of the window, he saw Musard and Miss Heredith walk round the side of the house to the garden, deep in earnest conversation. Caldew backed away to an angle where he was not visible from beneath, and watched them closely. Musard was talking, occasionally using an impressive gesture, and Miss Heredith was listening attentively, with a downcast face, and eyes which suggested recent tears. As she passed underneath the window at which he was watching, she raised a handkerchief to her face and sobbed aloud. Caldew wondered to see the proud and reserved mistress of the moat-house show her grief so freely in the presence of Musard, until he remembered what his sister had told him of their supposed early love for each other. And with that thought came another. It must have been Musard, the explorer, the man who had wandered afar in strange lands in search of precious stones, who had brought to the moat-house the peculiar stone of which the missing brooch and the little image had been fashioned.

Acting on the swift impulse to take the image to Miss Heredith and see how she received it, Caldew slipped the chain into his pocket and hurried downstairs. At the bottom of the staircase he was stopped by Tufnell, who had evidently been waiting for him to descend. The usually imperturbable dignity of the butler was for once ruffled, and he looked slightly flushed and dishevelled.

"I have been down to the village looking for you," he said, in a querulous tone. The majesty of the law had not vested Caldew with any dignity in the old butler's eyes. He saw in him only the village urchin of a score of years ago, whose mischievous pranks on the Heredith estate had been a constant source of worry to him.

The detective appreciated the estimation in which the old man held him, and the fact did not tend to lessen his own irritation.

"What did you want me for?" he curtly asked.

"I did not want you, but the gentlemen in the library do. Superintendent Merrington thought you had been a long time away, and he sent me down to the village to look for you. He is anxious to return to London. You will find him in the library."

The butler's cool assumption that it was Merrington's privilege to command, and Caldew's duty to obey, nettled the latter considerably. He felt that Merrington had, in his offensive way, deliberately asserted his official authority in order to humiliate him in his native place. Acting on the impulse of anger he replied:

"I have some things to attend to before I can see him. You can tell him so, if you like."

He walked away towards the hall door, conscious that the butler was standing stationary by the stairs, watching him. When he got outside, he turned his steps towards the garden; but brief as had been the interval since he had seen Musard and Miss Heredith conversing together by the sundial, it had been sufficient to bring the conversation to a conclusion. Miss Heredith was no longer to be seen, and Musard was sauntering along the gravel walk smoking a cigar.

Had they seen him at the window, and broken off their conference in consequence? It looked as if this were so. Miss Heredith must have entered the house by another door, because if she had gone in by the front door he must have encountered her. Caldew would have retraced his steps if Musard had not looked up, and, seeing the detective, waited for him to approach.

Caldew walked towards him, wondering whether Miss Heredith had missed her chain of charms, and had gone upstairs to find it. In that case, he reflected grimly, the position of the previous night was reversed, and this time it was she who was forestalled. It was an ironical situation, truly, but he was to some extent the master of it.

Musard nodded to the detective and proffered his cigarcase. Caldew accepted a cigar and admired the case, which was made of crocodile skin, worked and dressed in a manner altogether new to him. He had never seen anything like it in London tobacconists' shops, and he said so.

"Native manufacture," replied Musard, selecting a fresh cigar. "My Chinese boy shot the crocodile which provided it. It's a rare thing for a Chinese to be a good shot with a modern English rifle, but my boy would carry off anything at Bisley. He never misses. It was lucky for me that he didn't that time, because the brute came along to bag me while I was swimming in a river. Suey, hearing me call, ran out from the tent with my rifle, and shot him from the bank. He got him through the eye—the eye and the throat are the only two vulnerable spots in a crocodile. A bullet will rebound off the head as off a rock."

"Where did this happen?" asked Caldew, in an interested tone. His own knowledge of crocodiles was confined to the fact that he had once seen a small one in a tank at the Zoological Gardens.

"In Zambesi. There are plenty of them there in the rivers and mango swamps. Some hunters stake a dog overnight by the river bank, and the animal gives them warning of the approach of the reptiles by howling with terror. It is rather cruel—to the dog."

"Undoubtedly," said Caldew.

"How are you getting on with your investigations in this case?" continued Musard, abruptly changing the conversation.

Caldew was instantly wary, and stiffened into an attitude of official reserve, wondering why Musard should seek to question him about the murder.

"I am an old friend of the Herediths," continued Musard, as though divining the other's thoughts. "This murder is a very terrible thing for them. I am afraid it may mean Sir Philip's death-blow. He is old and feeble, and the shock, and his son's illness, have had a very bad effect on him. I should have gone to France to-day for the War Office, but I arranged for somebody to go in my place in order to remain with the family in their hour of trial. Have you found out anything which leads you to suppose you are on the track of the murdered?"

"I am afraid I cannot tell you anything about the investigations," replied the detective cautiously. "I am not in charge of the case, you know."

"I understand," rejoined the other, with a nod. "Perhaps I should not have asked you. My anxiety must be my excuse."

He uttered this apology so courteously and pleasantly that Caldew felt momentarily ashamed of his own rigidly official attitude. But his instincts of caution quickly reasserted themselves, and he told himself that in this sinister case it was his business to be on his guard and talk to nobody.

The situation was terminated by the reappearance of Miss Heredith from a door at the side of the house. The detective was a little surprised to see her again, for he had conceived the idea that she had gone indoors to avoid meeting him. She went eagerly to Musard without noticing him.

"Oh, Vincent!" she exclaimed, and the look of relief on her face was unmistakable. "Sir Ralph Horton is just leaving. He says that Phil has passed the crisis, and there is no need for him to stay any longer. Phil still needs great care and attention, but Sir Ralph says it will be quite safe to leave him in Dr. Holmes's hands. There is no fear for his brain, thank God."

"This is good news," said Musard. "Have you told Sir Philip?"

"Not yet. I thought it better to defer it until after dinner. I want you to tell him then."

Miss Heredith turned as though to re-enter the house, but Caldew, who had been hovering a few paces away within earshot of this dialogue, approached her with the gold chain in his hand.

"Excuse me, Miss Heredith," he said. "One of the maids told me that you no longer occupied the room upstairs in the left wing, so I took the liberty of going in there to see if it was possible for the murderer to have escaped by clambering from the window of one room to another, and while I was there I found this chain. It was hanging out of a drawer of the toilet-table near the window, and as it had obviously been forgotten I thought I had better restore it to you."

He held it out to her as he finished speaking, keenly watching her face for some sign of confusion or trepidation. But Miss Heredith received the chain calmly, and thanked him for returning it. Caldew was disappointed at the failure of his test, but he essayed a further shot.

"I noticed a very peculiar little image among the charms on the chain," he said hesitatingly. "I have never seen anything like it before, and I couldn't help wondering where it came from."

It was a clumsy trap, and he realized it, but he was too anxious to achieve his end by more subtle methods. There was nothing in Miss Heredith's calm countenance to suggest that she was alarmed or uneasy at his curiosity. She turned to Musard.

"Mr. Caldew means the strange little image you gave me when you arrived, Vincent. What is it?"

She held out the chain, and the explorer took it in his big brown hand. He separated the image from the other charms with his forefinger, and turned it over carelessly.

"That is a tiki," he said.

The explanation conveyed nothing to Caldew.

"I have never heard the word before," he said. "What is a tiki?"

"It is the Maori word for the creator of man, and is also taken to represent an ancestor," Musard explained. "The Maoris are to some extent ancestor worshippers, and adorn their pahs and temples with large wooden images of immense size, supposed to represent some renowned fighting ancestor. These images are worshipped as gods, and are believed to be visited by the spirits, who ascend to converse with them by the hollow roots of a pohutukawa tree, which descends into the Maori nether regions. The smaller tikis, or, more strictly speaking, hei-tiki, such as this, are carved as representations in miniature of the larger images, and are worn as neck ornaments. They are supposed to render the wearer immune from the wicked designs of evil spirits."

"From what material are they carved?" said Caldew, who had followed this explanation attentively. "I have never seen anything resembling it. It seems as clear and colourless as glass, but it emits a faint greenish lustre, and there are black flecks in it."

"It is nephrite, or Maori greenstone," replied Musard. "London jewellers term it New Zealand jade."

"Surely this stone is not jade?" said Caldew, in some surprise. "I have seen New Zealand jade ornaments in London shops, but they were made from a dull deep greenstone, not a bit like this stone, which is clear as crystal, and has a lustre."

"There are different sorts of jade," replied Musard. "The present craze of Society women is for Chinese pink jade and tourmalin. A good pink jade necklace will readily bring a thousand pounds in Bond Street, and it is going to be the fashionable jewel of the season. New Zealand nephrite has not yet come into popular favour with English ladies, and only the commoner dark green variety, which is frequently spurious, is seen here. This image was made of the rarer kind of pounamu, as the Maoris call it."

"It is very pretty," said Caldew. "Have you any more of it?" He flattered himself that the assumption of carelessness in his tone was not overdone.

"No," replied Musard. "It was the only piece of the rare kind I was ever lucky enough to obtain."

"There was another small piece, Vincent," remarked Miss Heredith. "You brought it about ten years ago. It was the same kind of transparent stone, with black flecks in it."

"I had forgotten. I gave it to Phil, didn't I? What did he do with it?"

"He had it made into a brooch for Hazel Rath, and gave it to her as a birthday gift."



CHAPTER XII

As Caldew returned to the house for his interview with Merrington, the one clear impression on his mind was that the discovery of the owner of the missing brooch was the starting point in the elucidation of the murder.

In the library he found Superintendent Merrington, Captain Stanhill, Inspector Weyling, and Sergeant Lumbe. The sergeant, who looked tired and dirty, was apologetically explaining that his visit to Tibblestone had been fruitless.

"I had my journey for nothing," he was saying in his thick country voice, as Caldew entered. "I had a wild goose chase all over the place, and then it turned out that this chap Mr. Hawkins telephoned about was only a canvasser for In Memoriam cards for fallen soldiers. I come across him at last sitting by the roadside eating his dinner and reading a London picture paper. He looked a doubtful sort of a customer, sure enough, but he was able to prove that he was playing bagatelle in the inn last night at the time the murder was committed."

Superintendent Merrington dismissed this information with a nod, and turned to Caldew.

"Did you interview Mrs. Weyne?" he asked.

"They were not in," was the reply. "I was told they had motored to the moat-house. Did you see them?"

Superintendent Merrington frowned. He had not seen the Weynes, and he had not been informed of their visit. It was another addition to the sum of untoward incidents which had happened to him since his arrival at the moat-house, and he felt very dissatisfied and wrathful.

"I am returning to London by the next train, Caldew," he said, in his authoritative voice. "Official business of importance demands my immediate presence. I will have some inquiries made at Scotland Yard about the people who have been staying here. In the meantime, you had better remain on the spot and continue your inquiries under the Chief Constable."

"I shall be very glad of Detective Caldew's help in unravelling this terrible mystery," Captain Stanhill remarked courteously.

Caldew drew several conclusions from his chief's speech. Merrington was puzzled about the case, but had no intention of taking him into his counsel. Merrington believed that the murderer had got clear away, and, therefore, further local investigation was useless, but he deemed it advisable to keep a Scotland Yard man on the scene to watch for possible developments, because he placed no reliance on the county police. It was apparent that Merrington thought the murderer had come from a distance, and he was going to seek him in London. But he was leaving nothing to chance. He was retaining control of the investigations at both ends in order to monopolize the glory of the capture. If the murderer escaped, Caldew and the county police could be made the scapegoats for public indignation.

But while paying the involuntary tribute of swift anger towards these astute tactics of his departmental chief, Caldew realized with satisfaction that he was in the possession of a piece of valuable information which might upset his calculations.

"There are several people in the district whom it will be advisable to interview," continued Merrington, hastily consulting his notes. "In the first place, you must make another effort to see the Weynes. Mrs. Weyne may be able to give us some valuable information about Mrs. Heredith's earlier life. And I think you should see the station-master of Weydene Junction. The murderer may have walked across country to the junction rather than face the greater risk of subsequent identification by taking the train at one of the village stations on this side of it. And you had better see the housekeeper's daughter and get a statement from her. I do not suppose she knows anything about the crime, but she was here last night, and she had better be seen. She is employed as a milliner at the market town of Stading."

"Do you mean Hazel Rath?" inquired Caldew, in some surprise.

"Yes. She is the daughter of the housekeeper. She stayed here last night with her mother, but left to go back to her employment by the first train this morning."

"There must be some mistake about that. I understand she is still in the house."

"Who told you so?"

"One of the maidservants."

"We had better have the maid in and question her. What is her name?"

"Milly—Milly Saker."

Merrington touched the bell, and told the maidservant who answered it to send in Milly Saker.

The girl came in almost immediately, looking half defiant and half afraid. Merrington glanced at her keenly.

"You're the girl I saw dusting the hall this morning," he said. "Why did you not come in with the other servants to be examined?"

"Because I wasn't here," answered the girl pertly.

"Where were you?"

"Down in the village, at my mother's place."

"Who gave you permission to go?"

"Mrs. Rath, the housekeeper."

"Did you ask her for leave of absence?"

"No. She knew my mother was ill, and she said to me after breakfast, 'Milly, would you like to go and see your mother this morning?' I said, yes, I should, if she could spare me. She told me she could, so I thanked her and went."

Superintendent Merrington and Captain Stanhill exchanged glances. The same thought occurred to both of them. Mrs. Rath, the housekeeper, had assured them that she had sent all the servants to the library to be examined. Merrington turned to the girl again.

"Mrs. Rath's daughter was staying with her last night, wasn't she?"

"Yes."

"Is she still here?"

"Yes."

"Are you quite sure of that?"

"Yes, when I was outside about half an hour ago, I saw her through the window, sitting in her mother's room."

This piece of information conveyed some significance to Merrington's mind which was not apparent to Caldew. He paused for a moment, and then continued abruptly:

"Where were you last night at the time of the murder?"

"Please, sir, I don't know nothing about it," responded the girl with a whimper.

"Control yourself, my good girl," said Captain Stanhill soothingly. "Nobody suggests you had anything to do with it."

For reply, the girl only sobbed loudly. Superintendent Merrington, who had his own methods of soothing frightened females, shook her roughly by the arm.

"Listen to me," he sternly commanded. "Do you want to go to prison?"

"N—o, sir," responded Milly, between a fresh burst of sobs.

"Then you'd better stop that noise and answer my questions, or I'll put you under lock and key till you do. Where were you last night when the murder was committed?"

"I was waiting at table till dessert was served," replied the girl, thoroughly subdued by the overbearing manner of the big man confronting her.

"What did you do when you left the dining-room?"

"I went to the kitchen and was talking to cook for a while."

"And what did you do then?"

"I went up the passage and into the hall to see if dinner was finished. I knew Miss Heredith was anxious to have dinner over early as they were all going out, and I wanted to get dinner cleared away as quickly as I could, because I wanted to go out myself. I saw her leave the room and go towards the front door, but nobody else came out of the dining-room, and I could hear somebody talking. So after waiting a little while, and seeing nobody else come out, I went back towards the kitchen."

"Where were you standing while you were waiting?"

"Just at the corner of the passage leading up from the kitchen."

"You didn't go up stairs at all?"

"No, of course I didn't. 'Tisn't my place to go upstairs."

"Don't be saucy, but answer my questions. Did you hear the scream and the shot?"

"No, I didn't. I was back in the kitchen before then, and the kitchen is right at the back of the house. Cook and me didn't know anything about it till one of the girls came running down and told us about what had happened."

"Did you see anybody except Miss Heredith in the hall or on the staircase of the left wing while you were standing at the end of the passage?"

"Nobody except Miss Rath."

"Do you mean the housekeeper's daughter?"

"Yes."

"When did you see her?"

"As I was standing there waiting for a chance to clear away the dinner things, she come up from the centre passage leading from the housekeeper's rooms, and turned into the hall."

"Where was she going?"

"I don't know. I didn't ask her," replied the girl, who had regained something of her pert assurance.

"Did she see you?"

"No. I was standing at the end of the kitchen passage, which is close to the right wing. The passage she come out of was quite a long way from where I was standing, almost in the centre of the house. She turned the other way."

"She turned to the right, then, as she emerged from the passage, and walked in the direction of the left wing?"

"I don't know where she was going to. All I know is that I saw her turn out of the passage, and walk, as if might be, up the hall in that direction."

"Did you notice her actions?"

"I can't say as I did particular, except that she was walking in the shadow, on the side nearest to the passage she come out of, and seemed to be looking at the dining-room door."

"You are sure it was Hazel Rath?"

"Oh, it was her all right," replied Milly confidently. "I recognized her, as well as the dress she was wearing."

"Was this before or after you saw Miss Heredith leave the dining-room?"

"About ten minutes afterwards."

"Did you mention to anybody that you saw her?"

"I did not," replied the girl, as if the matter were one of supreme indifference to her.

"Why not?"

"I suppose Miss Rath is free to go where she pleases," said the girl airily. "She's privileged. When she used to live here she had the run of the house, just like one of the family. Tain't my business to question her comings and goings."

"Oh, Miss Rath used to live here, did she? How long ago?"

"Till about two years ago, before she went to business."

"And how long did she live here?"

"It must have been a good seven years or more," said Milly, considering. "She come here as a little girl when her mother come as housekeeper. Miss Heredith took a great fancy to her, and she was made quite a pet of the house, and did just what she liked. When she grew up she used to help her mother, and do little things about the house. But she never gave herself airs—I will say that."

"Very well. You may go now."

"Caldew," said Merrington quickly as the door closed behind the girl, "go and find the housekeeper and send her in here. And then keep an eye on her daughter, and do not let her out of your sight, until I send for you. Then bring her in."

When Caldew left the room on his errand, Captain Stanhill turned to Superintendent Merrington with a pained expression on his face.

"Do you suspect—" he commenced.

"I suspect nobody—and everybody," was the prompt reply. "My duty is to find out the facts, and my business is now to ascertain why the housekeeper lied to me about her daughter this morning. She was a fool to try and trick me. There's something underneath all this which I'll sift to the bottom before I leave."

There was a timid tap, and the door opened slowly, revealing the frail black figure of the housekeeper standing hesitatingly on the threshold. Her frightened eyes were directed to Merrington's truculent ones as though impelled by a magnet.

"You—you wished to see me?" she stammered.

"Yes. Come in." Merrington curtly commanded. "Close that door, Lumbe. Sit down, Mrs. Rath, I have a few questions to ask you."

The housekeeper took a seat, with her eyes still fixed on Merrington's face. She looked ill and haggard, but the contour of her worn face, and the outline of her slender figure suggested that she had once possessed beauty and attraction. Merrington, staring at her hard, again had the idea that he had seen her long ago in different conditions and circumstances, but he could not recall where.

"Look here, Mrs. Rath," he commenced abruptly. "I want to know why you lied to me this morning."

"I—I don't know what you mean. I didn't come here to be insulted." The housekeeper uttered these words with a weak attempt at dignity, but her lips went suddenly white.

"Don't put on any fine-lady airs with me, for they won't go down," said Merrington, in a fierce, bullying tone. "You know what I mean very well. You told me this morning, when I asked you, that you had sent in all the servants to be examined. I have just discovered that you did not. There was a girl, Milly Saker, whom I did not see. Why was that?"

It seemed to Captain Stanhill that the tension of the housekeeper's face relaxed, and that a look of relief came into her eyes, as though the question were different from the one she had expected.

"I did not tell you a lie," she replied, in a firmer tone. "I sent in all the servants who were in the house at the time. Milly was not at home."

"Where was she?"

"She went across to the village to see her mother, who is ill."

"With your permission, I presume?"

"Yes."

"Why did you permit her to go?"

"The girl's mother was very ill, and needed her daughter."

"You let her go, although I had told you I wanted to question all the servants?"

"No, it was before you told me that I gave Milly permission to have the morning off," responded Mrs. Rath quietly.

"Is that the true explanation?"

"Yes."

"Is it as true as your other statement?"

"What other statement?"

"The statement you made to me this morning when you assured me your daughter had left this house to return to her employment at Stading?" said Merrington, with a cruel smile. "That wasn't true, you know. How do you describe that untruth? As a temporary aberration of memory, or what?"

The housekeeper looked up with swift, startled eyes, and her thin hand involuntarily clutched the edge of the table in front of her, but she did not speak.

"You lied about that, you know," continued Merrington. "I've found out your daughter has been in the house all day. Why did you tell me a lie? Come, out with it!"

"You are too abrupt, Merrington," said Captain Stanhill, interposing with unexpected firmness. "You have frightened her. Come, Mrs. Rath," he said gently, "can you not give us some explanation as to why you misled us this morning?"

"Because I didn't want my daughter to be drawn into this dreadful thing," she exclaimed wildly. "I suppose it was very foolish of me," she added, in a more composed voice, as though reassured by the kindly look in Captain Stanhill's eyes, "but I really didn't think it mattered. My daughter knew nothing about the murder and as she is highly strung I did not want her to be upset."

"Where was your daughter last night when the murder was committed?" asked Merrington.

"In my room."

"Did either of you hear the scream or the shot?"

"No, my rooms are a long way from the left wing, and we were sitting with the door shut."

"Then when did you learn about the murder?"

"Very soon after it happened. One of the maidservants came and told me."

"And you say that your daughter was with you at the time, and had been with you a considerable time before?"

"Yes."

"I think that will do, Mrs. Rath, I have given you every opportunity, but you still persist in telling falsehoods. Your daughter was seen walking up the hall last night in the direction of the left wing shortly before the murder was committed. The person who saw her was the maid Milly Saker. Was that the real reason why you gave Milly leave of absence to visit her mother this morning—so that she should not tell us what she knew?"

"It is not true," gasped the housekeeper. "My daughter was not out of my rooms last night, I assure you that is the truth."

"I wouldn't believe you on your oath," retorted Merrington. "Lumbe, go and tell Caldew to bring in the girl."



CHAPTER XIII

The girl who entered the room a moment later was tall and graceful, with a yearning expression in her soft dark eyes, as though in search of a happiness which had been denied her by Fate. Her appearance was one of unusual refinement. She had not a trace of the coarsened blowzy look so common in English country girls; there was nothing of rustic lumpishness in her slim figure, and there was more than mere prettiness in her exquisite small features, her thick dark hair, her clear white skin with a tracery of blue veins in the temples. Her high-bridged nose and firm chin suggested some force of character, but that suggestion was counteracted by her wistful tender mouth, with drooping underlip. The face, on the whole, was a paradoxical one, containing elements of strength and weakness, and the eyes were the index to a strange passionate nature.

She advanced into the room quietly, with a swift glance, immediately veiled by drooped lids, at the faces of the police officials who were awaiting her. When she reached the far end of the table at which they were seated she stopped and stood with her hands clasped loosely in front of her, as though waiting to be questioned.

"Please sit down, Miss Rath," said Captain Stanhill politely. "We wish to ask you a few questions."

The girl seated herself in a chair some distance away from her mother, and this time she surveyed the men before her with an air of indifference which was obviously simulated.

But again she quickly dropped her eyes, for Merrington was staring at her with a look of amazement, as though confronted with a familiar presence whose identity he could not recall. He glanced from Hazel to her mother, and his eyes fastened themselves fiercely on the housekeeper with the satisfaction of a man who had solved an elusive puzzle.

"So we have met before, Mrs. Rath," he said. "You are—"

"No, no! Please keep silent in front of my daughter," broke in the housekeeper hurriedly.

"I was not mistaken. I remembered this woman's face this morning, but I could not then recall where I had seen her before," pursued Merrington, turning to Captain Stanhill and speaking with a sort of reflective cruelty. "Her daughter's face supplies the clue. She is the image of her mother as I remember her when she stood her trial at Old Bailey fifteen years ago. She was tried for—"

"I beg of you not to say it!" Mrs. Rath started from her seat, and looked wildly around as though seeking some avenue of escape from a threatened disaster.

"Is it necessary to go into this, Merrington?" asked Captain Stanhill in his mild tones, glancing from the excited woman to his colleague with the troubled consciousness that he was assisting in a scene which was distasteful to him.

"Of course it is necessary if we want to get at the truth of this case," retorted Merrington. "You needn't be concerned on Mrs. Rath's account," he went on, with a kind of savage, disdainful irony. "A woman who has been tried as an accessory to murder is not likely to be squeamish. Her name is not Rath. It is Theberton—Mary Theberton. She and her husband were tried at Old Bailey fifteen years ago for the murder of a man named Bridges. The trial made a great stir at the time. It was known as 'The Death Signal Case'."

Caldew looked at the housekeeper with a new interest. He readily recalled the notorious case mentioned by Merrington. Theberton was an Essex miller, who, having discovered that his young wife was in the habit of signalling his absence to Bridges by means of a candle placed in her window, had compelled her to entice him to the cottage by the signal, and was then supposed to have murdered him by throwing him into the mill dam. But though Bridges was seen entering the cottage and was not seen afterwards, the charge of murder failed because the detectives were unable to find his body. Theberton protested his innocence; Mary Theberton said her husband locked her in her room before admitting Bridges, and she knew nothing of what took place between the two men.

There was much popular sympathy with her during the trial as the belief gained ground that the relations between her and Bridges were innocent, though indiscreet; the outcome of a craving for sympathy which had led an unhappy young wife to confide her troubles to a former schoolfellow. She was the daughter of an architect, and had been reared in refinement and educated well, but she had been disowned by her father for marrying beneath her. Her husband ill-used her, and her story was that she had sought the assistance of an old schoolfellow in order to go to London to earn a living for herself and her little daughter. When the trial was over Theberton emigrated, and his wife disappeared, although there was some talk of putting on foot a public subscription for her. This was the end of "The Death Signal Case," for the mystery of the disappearance of Bridges was never solved.

Caldew wondered by what strange turn of Fortune's wheel the woman before him had come to be housekeeper at the moat-house. It was certain that Miss Heredith knew nothing of the black page in her past, because Miss Heredith, in spite of her kind heart and rigid church principles, was the last person to appoint anybody with a tainted name to a position of trust in her household. She was too proud of the family name to do such a thing. The fact that the housekeeper had held the post so long without discovery was proof of the ease with which identity could be safely concealed from everything except chance. Although her nervous demeanour suggested that she had been walking on a razor edge of perpetual suspense in her quiet haven, ever dreading detection, it seemed to Caldew that she might have gone undiscovered to her grave but for a trick of Fate in selecting Superintendent Merrington to investigate the moat-house murder. Fate, after its cruel fashion, had left her on her razor edge for quite a long while before toppling her over, and Caldew reflected that he had been made the instrument of her fall.

But what lay beyond the exposure of the housekeeper's identity? Why had she deceived Merrington about her daughter's presence in the house? Was it only the fear that Merrington would recognize her in her early likeness to her daughter, or were her falsehoods intended to deceive the detectives about Hazel's movements at the time of the murder? What would the girl say? The situation was full of strange possibilities.

While these reflections were passing through Caldew's head there was silence in the room, broken only by the clock on the mantelpiece ticking loudly, with pert indifference to human affairs. Merrington, after dragging the hidden and forgotten tragedy to light, remained quiet, watchfully noting the effect on mother and daughter. The mother stood without a word or gesture, her hand stiffened in arrested protest, like a woman frozen into silence. The girl's look was directed towards her mother with the fixity of gaze of a sleeper awakened in the horror of a bad dream. At least in their stillness they were both in accord. Then Hazel glanced wonderingly at the faces of the others in the room, with the fatigued indifference of a returning consciousness seeking to regain its bearings. This phase passed, and in the sudden wild burst of tears which followed was the belated realization of the meaning of her mother's exposure; the shame, the agony, the disgrace which it implied. With a quick movement she rose from her seat, walked across to her mother, and caught hold of her hand.

"Mother!" she said.

But her mother turned away from her, and, sinking in her chair, covered her face in her hands with a shamed gesture, like a woman cast forth naked in the light of day.

"Never mind your mother just now," said Merrington, as the girl bent over as though to sooth her. "Please return to your seat and answer my questions."

Hazel turned round at the sound of his voice, but stood where she was, regarding him anxiously.

"You stayed here last night with your mother, I understand?" Merrington continued.

"Yes."

"When did you arrive here?"

"Yesterday afternoon."

"Where from?"

"From Stading, by train. I had an afternoon off, and I came to see my mother."

"How long is it since you visited her previously?"

"It must be about three months," said Hazel, after a short reflection.

"Do you always allow three months to elapse between your visits?"

"No." There was a trace of hesitation in the response.

"You used to come oftener?"

"Yes."

"How often?"

"Nearly every week." This time the hesitation before the reply was plainly apparent.

"Why did you allow so long a time to elapse between this visit and the last one when you had previously been in the habit of seeing your mother nearly every week?"

Hazel again hesitated, as though at a loss for a reply.

"I have been so busy," she murmured at length.

"Is this your first visit to the moat-house since Mrs. Heredith came here to live?"

"Yes." The response was so low as to be almost inaudible.

Caldew, who was the only person in the room with the deeper knowledge to divine the drift of these questions, realized with something of a shock that Merrington, with fewer facts to guide him, had reached his absolute conclusion about the events of the last half-hour while he had wandered perplexedly in a cloud of suspicions. The mental jump had been too great for him, but Merrington had not hesitated to take it. Caldew waited eagerly for the next question. It was some time in coming, and when it did come it was not what Caldew expected. As though satisfied with the previous answers he had received, Merrington branched off on another track.

"How did you spend last night?" he asked abruptly.

"I do not understand you." There was the shadow of fear in the girl's dark eyes as she answered.

"I will put it more plainly then. How did you occupy the time between your arrival at the moat-house and bedtime?"

"I spent it with my mother in her rooms."

"Were you there all the time?"

It seemed to Caldew that the elder woman's attitude was that of a listener. Though she still kept her face buried in her hands, her frame slightly moved, as though she were listening to catch the reply.

"Yes." The word was spoken hurriedly, almost defiantly, but the girl's eyes wavered and fell under Merrington's direct glance.

"May I take it, then, that you were in your mother's room at the time Mrs. Heredith was murdered?"

This time Hazel did not reply audibly, but a faint movement of her head indicated an affirmative.

"What would you say if your mother admits that you left her room before the murder was committed, and that she did not see you until afterwards?"

It was a clever trap, Caldew reluctantly conceded, this idea of playing off the mother and daughter against each other, but one that he would have hesitated to use. The effect was instantaneous. Before the girl could frame her frightened lips in reply, her mother lifted her head sharply.

"I didn't say so! Don't answer him, Hazel, don't tell him. Oh!" Too late the wretched woman realized that she had betrayed her daughter, and she sank into a stupefied silence.

"Your mother has let the cat out of the bag," said Merrington to the girl, in a bantering tone. "Come, now," he added, changing swiftly into his most truculent mood. "We may as well have the truth, first as last. You were seen last night going up the hall in the direction of the left wing just before the murder was committed. Do you admit it?"

"I do." The admission was made in a low but calm tone.

"Then your last answer was untrue. What were you doing in the hall at that time?"

Hazel, staring straight in front of her, did not reply, but her quickly moving breast betrayed her agitation.

"Did you hear me? I asked what were you doing in the hall last night."

"I shall not tell you."

"Did you go upstairs?"

"I shall not tell you."

These replies were given with a firm readiness which was in striking contrast to her previous hesitation. She was like a person who had been forced on to a dangerous path she feared to tread, and had summoned fortitude to walk it bravely to the end.

"Of course you realize the position in which you place yourself by your silence?" The quiet gravity with which Merrington put this question was, similarly, in the strangest contrast to his former hectoring style. "It is my duty to warn you that you are placing yourself in a grave situation. Once more, will you answer my questions?"

"I will not." The answer was accompanied by a gesture which contained something of the carelessness of despair.

"Then you must abide the consequences." He turned to Captain Stanhill and Caldew. "It will be necessary to search the housekeeper's rooms. Lumbe, you remain here and take charge of these two women. Do not allow either of them to leave the room on any pretext. You had better keep the door locked until we return."

He strode out of the room followed by Captain Stanhill and Caldew, to the manifest trepidation of two maidservants outside, who had plainly no business there. It was apparent that Milly Saker had been talking, and that strange rumours were agitating the moat-house underworld.

"Where are the housekeeper's rooms?" said Merrington, abruptly accosting one of the fluttered girls. "Come now, don't stand gaping at me like a fool, but take us there directly."

The terrified girl went quickly ahead along a corridor leading from the main hall. Turning down a narrower passage near the end she paused outside a closed door and said:

"This is the housekeeper's room, sir."

"Stop a minute," said Merrington. "Does the housekeeper occupy only one room?"

"No, sir, there are two. A sitting-room, with a bedroom opening off it."

"She has no other room in any other part of the house?"

"Oh, no, sir."

"That will do. You may go."

The maid needed no second bidding, but scuttled back towards the corridor like a scared hen making for cover. Merrington flung open the door in front of him and entered.

The room was well and simply furnished in the style of the house, but the personal belongings and the bindings of some books suggested a mind not out of harmony with the refinement of its surroundings. Merrington, with a swift and comprehensive glance around him, began to upset the neat arrangement and feminine order of the apartment with a thorough and systematic search.

Caldew watched him for a moment, and then walked across to the door of the inner room and entered it. The bedroom was large and airy, and the appointments struck the note of dainty simplicity. Caldew was quick to notice a girl's hat, with a veil attached, cast carelessly on the toilet-table.

He made a circuit round the bed and approached the table to look at the hat. A tight knot and a slight tear in the gossamer indicated that it had been discarded very hastily, and Caldew wondered whether Hazel had it on, waiting for an opportunity to slip away from the moat-house, when he had knocked at the door to summon her to the library.

As he put the hat down his eye fell on a pincushion by the mirror, and he gave a start of surprise. In the midst of hatpins at various angles he saw the little brooch which had disappeared from the death-chamber. The stone with the greenish reflection shone clearly against the blue and gold shot-silk of the pincushion; the portion of the clasp which was visible revealed the beginning of the scratched inscription of "Semper Fidelis." The absence of any attempt to conceal the brooch was proof that its owner was under the delusion that nobody had seen it lying in the death-chamber. Caldew felt a thrill of professional vanity at the success of his ruse.

His own name uttered in a peremptory shout from the next room caused him to pick up the brooch and hasten thither. The first sight that met his eye was the flushed triumphant face of Merrington bending over some articles on the table. Caldew's view of the objects was obscured by Captain Stanhill, who was also examining them, but he guessed by the attitude of both men that a valuable find had been made. He advanced eagerly to the table and saw, lying between them, a small revolver and a handkerchief. The white cambric of the handkerchief was stained crimson with blood.

The room was in great disorder. Superintendent Merrington, in the impetuosity of his search, had reduced the previous order to chaos in the course of a few minutes. Drawers had been opened and their contents strewn about the floor, rugs and cushions had been flung into a corner of the room, and the doors of a cabinet had been forced. Even the pictures on the wall had been disarranged, and some of the chairs were knocked over.

"Where did you find these things?" asked Caldew, picking up the revolver and examining it.

"In that gimcrack thing over there." Merrington pointed to a slight, elegant writing-table standing in a corner of the room. "Isn't it a typical female hiding-place? About as safe as burying your head in the sand. The drawer had been locked and the key taken away, but it was quite easy to open. The lock is a trumpery kind of thing, with the bolt shooting into the soft wood."

"I see that the revolver is still loaded in five chambers," said Caldew, as he put down the weapon.

"Yes, and the sixth has been recently discharged. We don't require much clearer evidence than that. And look at this handkerchief. The blood on it is hardly dry yet."

Caldew took the handkerchief in his hand. As Merrington remarked, the blood on it was hardly dry. It was a small linen square, destitute of feminine adornment except for a dainty "H R" worked in silk in one corner. The letters were barely visible in the blood with which the whole handkerchief was saturated.

"I wonder how she got the blood on the handkerchief?" said Caldew. "Did she try to stop the bleeding after shooting Mrs. Heredith?"

"It would be just like a woman to do so," grunted Merrington. "Women are fond of crying over spilt milk—especially when they have spilt it themselves. However, that's neither here nor there. The point is that this is the girl's handkerchief, and this is the revolver with which she shot Mrs. Heredith."

"But what was her motive for committing such an atrocious crime?" asked Captain Stanhill in bewilderment.

"Jealousy," responded Merrington promptly. "I saw the possibility of that motive as soon as I heard Milly Saker's story, and learnt that Hazel Rath had lived for some years in the moat-house. Young Heredith and she must have been thrown together a lot before the war, and there was doubtless a flirtation between them which probably developed into an intrigue. There are all the materials at hand for it—a well-born idle young man, a girl educated above her station, a lonely country-house, and plenty of opportunity. I know the type of girl well. These half-educated protegees of great ladies grow up with all the whims and caprices of fine females, and their silly little heads are easily turned. Probably this girl imagined that young Heredith was so captivated by her pretty face that he would marry her. When she learnt that she had been dropped for somebody else she brooded in secret until her unbalanced nature led her to commit this terrible crime. Moreover, she is the daughter of a woman with a queer past, who has been living under an assumed name for the past fifteen years."

"Do you think mother and daughter have acted in collusion in this murder?" Caldew asked.

"That is a question I would not care to answer offhand," responded Merrington thoughtfully. "Undoubtedly the mother shielded the daughter and lied to save her, and she obviously knew that the girl was absent from her room at the time the murder was committed. How far this implies guilty knowledge, or the acts of an accomplice, we are not yet in a position to say. We will arrest the daughter, and detain the mother—for the present, at all events. Whether we charge the mother as well as the daughter will depend on our subsequent investigations. It will be no novelty for the mother to be charged as accessory in a murder case," concluded Merrington, with a grim smile.

"We have no direct evidence that the girl went upstairs last night," said Caldew, with a reflective air. "Milly Saker did not see her going upstairs, and apparently nobody saw her coming away."

"No direct evidence, it is true. But the presumptive evidence is so strong that it is hardly needed. In the first place, Milly Saker saw her going down the hall in the direction of the left wing just before the murder was committed. Next day—this morning—the housekeeper sent Milly Saker out of the way before she could be questioned by the police. That act suggests two inferences. First, Mrs. Rath, as she calls herself, had some inkling that Milly Saker saw her daughter in the hall on the previous night, and secondly, that Mrs. Rath feared, in the light of subsequent events, to let it be known that her daughter was seen walking down the hall before the murder was committed. From these inferences we may conclude that, even if the mother had no actual knowledge of the crime, she believed that her daughter was guilty. Her subsequent actions to-day confirm that theory in every respect. And, of course, the recovery of this revolver and the girl's handkerchief in her mother's rooms, where she slept last night, is the strongest possible proof that the girl shot Mrs. Heredith."

"Of course there can be no doubt of that. It would be impossible to find a stronger case of circumstantial evidence," said Caldew earnestly. "But here is a piece of direct evidence. Look here!" He produced the little brooch from his pocket and placed it on the table beside the revolver and the handkerchief. "This is the brooch I told you about. It is the brooch I saw in Mrs. Heredith's room which disappeared while I was downstairs. I found it stuck in a pincushion in the next room, beside the girl's hat. She must have realized that she dropped it in the murdered woman's bedroom, and seized the opportunity to return for it while I was out of the room. That is a piece of direct evidence that she was in Mrs. Heredith's bedroom."