Comes a Stranger Read online

  “If it’s that way, the Major might get here first,” Mills said. “He won’t have turned in yet.”

  “I hope someone will be along soon,” Bobby said. “I oughtn’t to be in this at all by rights.”

  “Well, sir, you’re Scotland Yard, you see,” Mills said mildly, “and if it’s murder—well I never heard tell of such a thing, not down our way, and there was me all alone and this gentleman coming in and saying what he had seen and all.”

  “The body seems to have disappeared,” Bobby said. “I can find no trace of it, no trace of blood either or of any disturbance.”

  “I saw it,” Virtue interposed doggedly. “It was a man about thirty. A thin, long face,, high cheekbones, very strongly marked eyebrows, a bit of a snub nose, a bit like mine, only bigger. Moustache with waxed ends, the lobe of the left ear not sticking out like most people’s, but attached to the head—quite distinctive.”

  A sort of strangled gasp came from Mills. Bobby looked at him. He was staring at Virtue as if he had seen a ghost, and when he tried to speak no words came at first. Then he stammered out:

  “But that—well, that—if that don’t beat all.”

  They were interrupted by Briggs who had disappeared from his post at the door but now came back.

  “It’s the ’phone, sir, I heard it ringing and I went to see,” he said to Bobby. “It’s Mrs. Mills, and she wants to speak to Mills or to you, sir. She sounds excited, she says it’s important.”

  “I’ll answer it. I’ll go,” Bobby said.

  “Miss Farrar just come downstairs, sir,” Briggs added. “She heard voices.”

  Bobby went through into the hall where the ’phone was situated. Olive was standing at the foot of the stairs. She said:

  “What’s happening? Briggs said you had come back. Is it a burglar? Briggs said Mr. Broast was out?”

  “It isn’t a burglar,” Bobby said. “I don’t know what it is except that it’s crazy. I must answer the ’phone.”

  It was ringing again. Bobby took the receiver and spoke. He heard Mrs. Mills’s excited, stammering voice that said:

  “Oh, please, it’s from Longmeadow Farm, Mr. Chapman’s, and he says Mr. Nat is there, Mr. Nat Kayne, shot dead where he found him in the sunk lane through the wood, isn’t it awful? whatever shall I do?”

  CHAPTER VII

  LEN HILL’S STORY

  For one bewildered moment, in the first instant of his astonishment, Bobby thought this must be the body of the dead man the young American claimed that he had seen through the library window, in some mysterious manner carried away to a lane in a wood where it had now been found. But then he remembered Nat Kayne as he had seen him for a moment earlier in the day. No resemblance to the description Virtue had given, a description, too, that Mills had appeared to recognize, but that had certainly not suggested Nat Kayne to him or he would undoubtedly have said so.

  It was something else then that had happened, but was it coincidence, or was there connection?

  No time to think that out now, Bobby told himself.

  He began to speak quickly over the ’phone. He told Mrs. Mills that he himself and her husband would go on at once to Longmeadow Farm, that he would attend to what was necessary in the way of summoning help, and that all he could do was to be careful to answer any further ’phone calls and make a note of any message received. Then he spent a few hurried minutes ringing up the chief constable and learning that that gentleman was already on his way to Wynton Lodge, and in getting in touch with the nearest county police headquarters to inform them of this new development, and to ask them to send a doctor and further help. He added, giving his name and rank in the Metropolitan police, that he was accompanying Mills forthwith to Longmeadow farm, Mills having managed to lame himself in a cycle accident, and being therefore to some extent incapacitated.

  In the middle of all this phoning, getting wrong numbers, waiting for a reply,—it all took time—he heard Olive say something. He turned round. She was standing a short distance away, looking towards the stairs. Half way down them stood Miss Kayne in a loose Chinese dressing gown, all sprawling, scaly dragon, that seem somehow to emphasize the grossness of her enormous bulk. She was standing motionless, her small, sunken eyes staring out, intent and angry, from the pits of flesh in which they were sunk. She had an ebony stick with a crook handle she used to support herself with, but this she was now holding up in an odd attitude as of mingled menace and triumph. She stood there like a brooding, malign Fate, and slowly she lifted her ebony stick to point with it towards the passage leading to the library door. It was a gesture that seemed to wave on invisible agents of her hate, and then in that small voice of hers which gave the impression of having to struggle for utterance and yet possessed penetration and a clarity of its own, she said:

  “It’s come then… has it come?... what’s happening in here?”

  Bobby had no time to wonder what she meant, though he thought her gesture conveyed less surprise than a kind of hopeful or even triumphant rage. He found himself remembering the odd tale Olive had told him of how this old fat woman had once had a lover and of how she had buried his letter and his poems in a secret place. There flashed into his mind a conviction that there must be some connection and then he told himself there could not be, and that anyhow there was not time now to think about that. The ’phone claimed his attention. He turned to it and he heard Olive say:—

  “I don’t know… something… I don’t think it’s burglars.”

  “Burglars!” Miss Kayne pronounced the word with scorn, dismissed it with a gesture. She pointed her ebony stick at Bobby. “What’s he to do with it? what’s he come back for?” Then she added: “What’s he found out?”

  Bobby hung up the receiver.

  “There’s been an accident, apparently,” he said. “I don’t know what. At a place called Longmeadow. I expect Mills will know it. May we borrow your car, Miss Kayne? We ought to get over there as soon as possible to see what’s actually happened.”

  “Nat Kayne?” she asked. “Has something happened to Nat Kayne?”

  “Why do you think of him?” Bobby asked, startled.

  Again she made that dark, slow gesture towards the library.

  “Something’s happened there,” she said. “In the Kayne library. What happens in the Kayne library—” She left the sentence unfinished. “Suppose I say I will not let you have the car?” she said.

  “Then I shall have to take it without your permission,” Bobby answered.

  She emitted an odd kind of half-choked chuckle.

  “Take it, then,” she said, “and drive fast. Then you may all break your necks and that might be best for some of us.” He turned and began to climb the stairs again, slopping heavily upwards in her great shapeless slippers. Over her shoulder she said, as she laboured upon the ascent: “Let me know as soon as you can if young Nat is dead.”

  Bobby made no answer nor did his expression change. Of that he was sure, he had trained himself to keep full control of his features. But she seemed to read the truth, for she paused and turning, supporting herself by the banister rail, she said:

  “Why, then, if he’s dead, there’s only one Kayne left—me.” She said to Olive: “Where is Mr. Broast?”

  “I think he is out,” Olive said. “I don’t know.”

  Miss Kayne greeted this with her half-choked chuckle and then started to resume her ascent. Looking back at Bobby she said to him:

  “Well, get to work, Mr. Detective.”

  It had been a nightmare scene, with that old fat woman brooding in hatred from half way up the stairs. But Bobby had no time to spare just then for trying to think out its implications. He asked Olive to be ready to explain to the chief constable on his arrival what had happened. He told Briggs to lock the library door, to remain there on guard, and to see that no one entered. If anyone, his employer or any one else, Mr. Broast, for instance if he returned, insisted on entering and Briggs could not prevent it, then he was to warn them
that the police would regard it as highly suspicious. He also asked Virtue to wait with Briggs for the present. He supposed Virtue might take the opportunity to disappear, but that risk had to be accepted. If he did vanish, that would be a kind of confession, and probably there would be little difficulty in picking him up again. Then he told Mills to wait for him at the front door while he ran round to the garage and got out Miss Kayne’s car. He had heard that Miss Kayne kept no chauffeur. The car was generally driven by Mr. Broast or by Briggs. It was only rarely that Miss Kayne made any use of it. With all possible speed Bobby brought the car round to the front of the house, picked up Mills, and started.

  Mills knew Longmeadow farm and the Mr. Chapman who occupied it. Mr. Chapman was a churchwarden, a leading Conservative, was believed to be more prosperous and successful than most farmers, and was understood to entertain hopes of being made a magistrate some day, if the ‘Reds’ were kept out. By ‘Reds’ Mr. Chapman, who read one of the national papers and believed it all, meant everyone who didn’t vote for the Conservative party. Bobby guessed that Mills did not much like him. Apparently Mr. Chapman was a somewhat authoritative gentleman, a little fond of laying down the law according to his own interpretation, and then expecting Mills to execute it.

  “Reported me once for not arresting some lads that had been blackberrying,” Mills said resentfully. “The inspector came over special and said as how I was right, but it ain’t so nice to be reported—and if you’re reported they’re always ready to think it’s along of you being wanting in tack or something.”

  Bobby nodded comprehendingly. ‘Tack’ is indeed the first essential in a policeman’s equipment, and Bobby was glad of the warning that Mr. Chapman was one of those people in dealing with whom ‘tack’ is always necessary. Mills, dropping the subject of Mr. Chapman, and having directed Bobby, who was driving, which route to take, went on:

  “It’s a rum start altogether about that body the young gentleman says he saw.”

  “You recognized the description?” Bobby asked. “Some-one you know?”

  “Well, sir, it’s this way,” Mill explained. “There’s a young lady what does for Mr. Broast, writing his letters and such like.”

  “Miss Perkins?” Bobby asked, wondering what on earth that giggling ineffectual little person with her eternal refrain: ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ had to do with this complicated affair.

  “That’s her,” said Mills. “Very quiet, respectable young person, though there’s some laughs at her and calls her a softy, but what’s it to do with them if she is, if so be she gives satisfaction?”

  “Nothing at all,” agreed Bobby. “Do you mean the description was like some friend of hers?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” answered Mills. “When she come first there was a bit of talk about how she told everyone as how she wouldn’t be here long, on account of going to be married, and she got to showing round a picture of her young man. I seen it myself, like most everyone else. A fair joke it got to be, and everyone laughing about it behind her back, and some of the women saying she was just putting it on like and she wasn’t no more engaged to no one than the babe unborn. Just swank like, if you see what I mean.”

  “Yes,” said Bobby. “Well?”

  “Well, sir,” said Mills earnestly, “struck me all of heap like, it might have been that there photo the American gentleman was telling of, particular when he said that about the end of the left ear being stuck to the cheek like. I remember noticing that particular.”

  “Smart of you to notice it,” Bobby said approvingly. “Your inspector ought to owe you a pat on the back. Only—what does it mean?”

  “Ah,” said Mills profoundly, “that’s what’s worrying me, though I hadn’t the education to put it in them words.”

  “Worrying me, too,” said Bobby. “Where does Miss Perkins hang out? at the lodge?”

  “No, she lodges with Mrs. Somerville. Walks to the Lodge every morning and stops all hours. Dinner and tea there, and Mrs. Somerville gets her breakfast and supper, and keeps it hot for her when she’s late. Mrs. Somerville’s is along this road, the last house on the right.”

  “I suppose she’ll be in bed,” Bobby said. “Anyhow no time to stop now. But it might be a good idea to get hold of that photo.”

  “That’s the house,” Mills said. “There’s a light in her room—getting ready for bed. That’s her at the window,” he added.

  Miss Perkins’s profile was in fact plainly visible. She was sitting at the open window, smoking a cigarette, presumably before retiring.

  “Damp night to be sitting there,” Bobby remarked, though in fact the splutter of rain had ceased and the air was close and heavy enough to make an open window desirable in spite of the pervading dampness.

  They had left behind now the village, and Miss Perkins enjoying her cigarette, and by a dark, deserted road with so many twists and turns in it Bobby had to drive slowly and with caution, they came presently to a large farm-house. There were lights in the window and a general pervading air of bustle and excitement. When the car stopped before the front entrance a short, thick-set man came out to greet them.

  “Too late, Mills,” he said. “Dr. Blythe is here—got here just in time to see the poor fellow die. This gentleman a doctor?” he asked, looking at Bobby.

  “No, I’m a police officer, London,” Bobby explained. “Mr. Mills asked me to come with him to see if I could help. Mills has had an accident and hurt his leg unfortunately, so he is a bit handicapped.”

  Mr. Chapman looked as if he thought that was just what one would expect from Mills, and then led the way into the house and up the stairs into a small spare room where in all the stillness and majesty of death lay that young man whose physical vigour and beauty had so impressed Bobby in the brief glimpse he had had of him only a few short hours before. An elderly man who was in the room turned to them as they came in.

  “Never recovered consciousness,” he said. “Died almost as I got here. Not that I could have done anything. Three bullet wounds in the chest. Bad internal bleeding.”

  “No possibility of suicide then?” Bobby asked.

  “None. Three wounds, each one probably fatal. It’s a wonder he lived so long. Fired from a distance. No sign of burning on the clothing. No marks on the hand.”

  “Was any weapon found?” Bobby asked Mr. Chapman.

  “No, the men had a look round, but they didn’t see anything. It was Len Hill found him—we heard him running and shouting just as we were turning in. We’re early folk here, soon after ten it must have been. Said there was a chap shot in the lane through the wood and he reckoned it was Mr. Nat Kayne. So I got some of my men together and we found him and brought him in. My wife rang up Dr. Blythe as soon as we knew, and Mills, too. Murder, that’s what it is. Murder.”

  They went downstairs, and Bobby asked Mr. Chapman a few more questions. Mr. Chapman was quite willing to talk, and so was Len Hill, the man who had made the discovery. Hill was an under-gamekeeper on a neighbouring estate, and hearing shots had concluded poachers were at work, though even at first he thought that queer since poachers are usually careful to work silently, and also it had struck him that the reports had had a quality of sound different from any he was used to.

  “Sharp like,” he told Bobby.

  It had been exactly ten o’clock when he heard the shots and went to investigate them. He had found the dying man lying in a sunk lane, providing a short cut for foot passengers to and from the village, who thus avoided the rather long detour by road that would otherwise have been necessary. On his giving the alarm Mr. Chapman and several of his men had gone with him, bringing back the wounded man on a stretcher improvised on the spot from branches cut or broken from neighbouring trees.

  Bobby reflected that this probably meant that every likely clue on the spot had been thoroughly trampled out of existence. Half a dozen heavy booted men moving excitedly to and fro in the vicinity would leave little trace of what had happened before their arrival. No goo
d saying so, however. The mischief was done for one thing, and for another the first necessity had been that the injured man should receive attention. Then, too, the thought of murder had probably occurred to no one. Accident or suicide at first it would be put down as, and only later would the grim thought, certainty, of murder begin to be entertained.

  Both unfair and useless, then, to complain, but all the same bad luck that there probably remained no chance of gleaning any information from even the most careful inspection of the scene of the crime.

  In reply to a question Hill had no doubt about finding the exact spot, even now, in the darkness. But he did not see what the good would be.

  “You won’t see nought,” he said, “not till daylight.”

  “It’s the weapon,” Bobby said. “We ought to get hold of the weapon if we can possibly.”

  Another car arrived. It was Major Harley. He had driven on from Wynton Lodge. He was a brisk, quick-spoken, apparently capable man, and he agreed at once, as soon as he understood the position, to Bobby’s suggestion that a search should be begun immediately for the weapon used.

  “Most important to find it,” he agreed.

  “He undertook, too, to ’phone the Scotland Yard authorities, explain the circumstances, and secure permission for Bobby to remain on the spot for the time.

  “I shall tell them I consider it most fortunate to have an experienced officer here from the very start,” he said.

  Two or three of the farm labourers agreed to accompany Bobby and Len Hill to make a renewed search for the weapon, and Mr. Chapman allowed them to provide themselves with stable lanterns. They started off accordingly and as they went Len Hill said:

  “I don’t wonder the Major thinks it rare luck there should be a Scotland Yard man here. Never been a murder in these parts before that ever I heard tell of, and when one happens, there’s a London man right on the spot.”

  Bobby said nothing, but again there came a little nagging thought in his mind that perhaps there was no coincidence at all, that perhaps his arrival in the village, his known occupation, had merely been the spark serving to bring about an explosion that time and circumstance had long since prepared.