Collected works of j s f.., p.841
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 841
“I don’t allow anybody in my house when I’m out,” answered Mrs. Martenroyde. “Mally Brewster has strict orders to admit nobody — neither parson nor squire, slave nor king, when I’m not there. What might you be wanting?”
Beverley laughed and seated himself on the low stone wall which fenced the courtyard of Mill House from the road.
“Exactly what Mally asked,” he said. “Same inquiry. Well, not much, Mrs. Martenroyde. We just wanted to have a bit of talk with you, and with Mr. Ramsden and Mr. Sugden. You know,” he went on, dropping his half-bantering tone and becoming serious, “we’ve got to clear up this matter of your brother-in-law’s death. That can’t be allowed to rest.”
“Well, that’s your job,” retorted Mrs. Martenroyde. “We’re not police folk. And if we had any ideas or suggestions, it’s no use putting ’em to you — you’d never credit ’em.”
“Oh, come, Mrs. Martenroyde, don’t say that!” exclaimed Beverley. “I should give every attention to anything you said.”
“There was no attention paid to what I said that night in the mill when you were all gathered round James’s dead body and wondering who’d killed him,” replied Mrs. Martenroyde. “I said then that I expected some of his men had been getting a bit of their own back, and because I said so I was miscalled. But I know what I think.”
“But the late Mr. Martenroyde was always on such good terms with his workpeople, wasn’t he?” said Beverley. “It’s generally understood that he was, in the district.”
Mrs. Martenroyde shook her head.
“Ay, well, them that’s closer acquaintance knows better,” she said. “Ramsden there can tell different.”
Beverley turned to Ramsden. Ramsden, taciturn as ever, had stood by, watching us silently while his mother talked. Sugden, cigarette in his lips, and hands in the pockets of his plus-four knickerbockers, had seated himself on the wall near Beverley, to listen at his ease.
“There’s been unpleasantness time and again,” said Ramsden. “We’ve never had a strike nor a lock-out, but Uncle James has had rows with some of ’em, at odd times.”
“Yes, but that isn’t any proof that somebody wanted to murder him!” said Beverley. “If you knew of anybody that had a desire for revenge—”
“I suppose, as you’re a Yorkshireman yourself, Mr. Beverley, that you’ve heard the old saying about a Yorkshireman? — that he’ll carry a stone in his pocket ten years, and then turn it and carry it another ten, but he’ll fling it at last,” said Mrs. Martenroyde. “Do you think that among the two or three hundred men that works in this mill there isn’t one that’s kept a stone to throw? Don’t tell me!”
“But — can you point to any particular individual?” asked Beverley. “I want something definite. If I knew of anybody who had a grudge against Mr. Martenroyde, anybody who’d an old score to pay off, I could get to work. But I can’t do anything on vague generalities.”
Ramsden looked at his mother. The look conveyed the impression that he had an idea in his mind and was not sure whether he should let it out or not. Mrs. Martenroyde making no reply to Beverley, Ramsden spoke, diffidently.
“There was that chap Marris, you know,” he said, still looking at his mother. “That’s about all I can call to mind.”
“Who was Marris?” asked Beverley. “One of your men?”
“No — leastaways, not at the mill,” replied Ramsden. “He was gardener, up at the grange. Uncle James found out that he was selling stuff out of the gardens and the greenhouses and putting a pound or two a week into his own pocket, so he chucked him out. And Marris — he was a foul-tempered chap. The sort,” added Ramsden, “that would have his knife into anybody if he got a fair chance.”
“He threatened Uncle James,” remarked Sugden.
“When was all this?” asked Beverley.
“Happen eighteen months ago,” replied Ramsden; “about that.”
“I’d forgotten about Marris,” said Mrs. Martenroyde. “He was a bad ‘un — he cheated James right and left. Ramsden says a pound or two — I’ll lay he made a small fortune out of that garden. James never took any heed of what the man was doing; it was pure accident that he found him out.”
“Where’s Marris live now?” asked Beverley.
“Other side of Todman Fell,” replied Ramsden. “He came from there — Elthwaite, his village is — and he went back there.”
Beverley made a note in his pocket-book and got off his seat on the wall.
“Well,” he said, “we’ve got to get down to the bottom of it. It’s a stiff problem, you know, Mrs. Martenroyde — but there’s guilt somewhere. Somebody did it.”
“Ay, and there’ll not be wanting evil-disposed folk and wicked tongues in these parts to say that innocent folk did it!” exclaimed Mrs. Martenroyde. “I know ’em, Mr. Beverley. They’ll be saying, before they’ve done, that me or my lads or all of us put an end to James before he could wed this fine young madam from London. But we’re clear, anyhow. I was in my bed when James was coming across that bridge to meet his death, and Ramsden here was with his friends in Shipton, and Sugden there was in London.”
“On the way to London, at any rate,” said Sugden, with a laugh that sounded a little forced. “Not quite there, Mother — I didn’t leave Leeds till pretty late.”
“Well, you were in the train, anyway,” retorted Mrs. Martenroyde. “You weren’t anywhere about Todmanhawe. And, as I’ve said, neither was Ramsden, and I was in my bed — so there was none of us near what they call the scene. And if you ask me, Mr. Beverley, it’ll take you all your time to find out who put an end of James Martenroyde, for it was neither thief nor robber — they’d taken naught out of his pockets, so you’ve naught to go by.”
She made a move towards the door of her house, and as the two young men followed her, Beverley and I moved off. When we had turned the corner into the main road, Beverley laughed.
“Take me all my time, will it?” he said. “I think not, Mrs. Martenroyde! Well, Camberwell, we’ve settled one thing. That young Sugden is a damned liar! In the train between Leeds and London, was he, at the time James Martenroyde was killed, when I know that at half past two, a few hours later, he was booking his ticket at Shipton! There’s a lie for you — Camberwell, Sugden’s the man! Now listen — are you doing anything tomorrow morning?”
“I’m doing nothing any morning, Beverley,” I replied, “unless Mr. Eddison gives me something to do. I’m staying here at his pleasure — in case I’m wanted. Why?”
“Tomorrow morning,” he said, “we’ll go in my car and trace Master Sugden’s movements from the moment he left Abbeyside station at 5.41 that Monday afternoon to the time he was seen by Outwin and Guest on the top road at Todmanhawe — if we can. At any rate, I think we can find out where he left the train. For he did leave it, and he did come back here, and I want to know why he came and where he was until he turned up at Shipton for the Scotch express. Oh, I’ll have Sugden in a trap yet — don’t bother yourself. I believe he did kill his uncle. And now let’s go and get Mr. Eddison to send straight off for William Heggus and the books from the London office — I want to establish motive, Camberwell. Motive! — let me get the motive, and then — ah!”
“Heggus will have to come here secretly,” I said. “It won’t do to let Sugden know he’s coming, or has come.”
“I’ll suggest that to Mr. Eddison,” said Beverley. “It can be managed. But we must have Heggus and these books at once.”
We went back to Mr. Eddison and told him of all that had passed in front of the Mill House. He pooh-poohed the Marris idea and counselled Beverley to take no further trouble about it — Marris, he happened to know, had got another equally good job as gardener and was not likely to have risked his own neck for the sake of revenging himself on James Martenroyde for punishment which he richly deserved. And he agreed with Beverley that the evidence against Sugden was strong and must be thoroughly gone into. Therewith he wrote a long letter to William Heggus in London, explaining that the Martenroyde business was now under his and Mr. Halstead’s control, and instructing him to come down to Todmanhawe at once and to bring the office books with him.
Next morning Beverley and I set out in his car to carry out his project of tracing Sugden Martenroyde’s movements on the afternoon and evening of the murder. We left Todmanhawe exactly as Sugden left it — by a road which ran straight from the village to Abbeyside station, a little railway halt, insignificant in size, so called because of its contiguity to the ruins of a once famous religious house. And here, at the very beginning of our researches, we made a first discovery, small in itself, but certainly tending to show that when Sugden boarded the 5.41 train at that place he had a definite intention of leaving it at some other station along the line. The traffic from Abbeyside was so unimportant that the duties of booking-clerk and porter were combined in one man.
This functionary, discreetly questioned by Beverley, had a clear remembrance of Sugden’s arrival at the station in Ramsden’s car on that particular Monday evening; the news of the murder at Todmanhawe, communicated all over the countryside next morning, had fixed it in his memory. Mr. Sugden, he said, bought a first-class ticket to St. Pancras, London. Then, having bought it, he said to the porter-clerk that he didn’t want to be bothered with his suitcase when he arrived in London; he had to go down to the City as soon as his train got in (a somewhat remarkable statement to make, seeing that if he had gone straight on by the 5.41 and its connections from Leeds or Bradford, he would have been in London in the small hours of Tuesday morning, at which time the City is a desert!), and couldn’t lug the case down there. And, borrowing a label from the man, he had written on it: “To be called for,” had told him to label the suitcase: “St. Pancras,” and, leaving it to him to hand to the guard, entered his compartment free and untrammelled. So, apparently, his resolve to quit the train somewhere had been formed even before he drove up to the station at Abbeyside.
But — where had he left that train? He could not have gone far in it, for if the story told by Outwin and his fellow-workman, Guest, was true, Sugden Martenroyde was in the immediate neighbourhood of Todmanhawe about half past seven Monday evening. He must have got off at some station not far along the line, found some means of getting back to Todmanhawe, and after spending some time there, somewhere, have made his way to Shipton. Now, the 5.41 was a local train, stopping at every station on its way to Bradford — if a passenger wished to go to Leeds, he changed trains at Wiseley, some twelve miles from Abbeyside. But Beverley’s idea was that Sugden had left the train almost at once — probably at Heathley, where he would have no difficulty in finding a car to take him back to Todmanhawe. Heathley, four miles from Abbeyside, was a place of some size, a health-resort, having a railway station at which two or three lines met and where Sugden would not be likely to be noticed; at that hour of the evening, just before six o’clock, there would be a great deal of traffic in Heathley station, trains arriving just about then filled with business men from Leeds in one direction and Bradford in another. Clearly, Heathley was the place in which to make inquiries, and we re-entered Beverley’s car and drove off down the valley in its direction.
“Looks to me as if he’d worked all this out pretty carefully, Camberwell,” remarked Beverley. “He’d thought over that suitcase dodge before he left Abbeyside, I’ll bet. I dare say he’d reckoned everything up, right on to getting the Scotch express at Shipton. Now if we can only find out how he got back to Todmanhawe, eh? He couldn’t walk it in the time — somebody must have driven him. And there’s no place but Heathley at which he could get a car.”
But we had no luck at Heathley. We spent hours there, questioning, interviewing, without result. The car-drivers who plied for hire at the station knew nothing of Sugden. There were three garages in the little town at which a car might have been hired; we got no help at any of them. Eventually we went forward to Wiseley, the only other place in that part of the valley at which Sugden could have got any sort of conveyance. We had no better luck there. And since Wiseley was the last place from which Sugden could have got back to the neighbourhood of Todmanhawe by the hour at which Outwin and Guest saw him near there, we gave up that part of our quest. Beverley was beginning to agree to a theory which I ventured to suggest — that Sugden had slipped out of the local train while it was standing in one of the small stations (it would be quite dark soon after he left Abbeyside) and had made his way to some friend’s house, where he had secured the means of retracing his steps.
“Anyway,” said Beverley, still persistent, “we know exactly where Outwin and Guest saw him that night, and we’ll follow the probable route to it. I’ve a good ordnance map here — let me show you.”
We were then at Wiseley, our last place of call, and had spent a couple of hours there without profit. Beverley, spreading out his map, pointed out to me that whether Sugden had turned back from Wiseley or from Heathley or from any of the smaller stations in between those places, he would, in order to reach Todmanhawe at the point where the two men saw him, have had only one possible route that he could follow. This was the main road through the valley as far as Abbeyside. There the road forked. One branch went on to the bridge at Todmanhawe in a straight line; the other, to the left, went along the high ground on the north of the dale, passed through the village of Hartwick, and reached Todmanhawe at a point just above Todmanhawe Grange.
We took this road. We halted at Hartwick and made guarded inquiries. There were two inns there, one in the village, one at a cross-roads. We heard nothing of Sugden, nor of any car or vehicle having been put up at either inn on the evening we were so anxious to get particulars of. Eventually we reached the spot at which Outwin and Guest had seen Sugden hurry past, going in the direction of Todmanhawe. A few minutes later, rounding a corner of the road, we came in sight of Todmanhawe itself, lying in the valley far beneath us. And there, on the right-hand side of the road, its windows commanding a wonderful view of the upper reaches of Scarthdale from Todmanhawe Mill to the mountain chain rising to the northward, stood an old house of grey stone. In its porch, on which the afternoon sun was throwing its last beams, sat, alone, a man, wrapped in heavy shawls.
CHAPTER X. WHO WAS IT?
AT THE SIGHT of this man, obviously an invalid, sitting there, solitary, in the grey setting of the stone-walled porch, Beverley pulled up the car.
“That’s poor Dakin Heggus,” he said. “Brother of the Heggus — William — who’s in Martenroyde’s London office. Dakin’s on his last legs, poor chap, though I don’t think he knows it. Sad fate! — he’s well off, and comparatively young, and he’s got a handsome wife, and — well, I’ve heard that the doctors can do nothing for him. Some mysterious wasting disease — he’s been getting weaker and weaker for months. We’ll just ask how he is — and, Camberwell, we’ll not say anything about what we’re doing here. If he or his wife says anything, we’ll listen — and we won’t ask any questions. Direct questions are not the fashion in this part of the world.”
We left the car on the roadside and walked up through a neatly arranged garden, destitute now of flower or leaf, save for its clumps of evergreen, to the porch. Its occupant sat in an easy chair, rugs about his legs and feet, shawls about his shoulders. He was a man of presumably fifty years of age, and, stripped of his many coverings, was probably thin and worn; his face, meagre and emaciated, was of the colour of old parchment; his hands, one of which he waved to us as we advanced, were little more than skin and bone. But his eyes, seen at a closer angle, were keen and bright, and at sight of Beverley a new light came into them.
“Well, Dakin,” said Beverley, as we reached the porch, “and how’s things with you? This is a friend of mine, Mr. Camberwell. We thought we must stop and pass the time of day with you. How are you nowadays?”
The sick man smiled wanly, shaking his head.
“Why, I don’t seem to make any great improvement, Superintendent,” he answered. “Some days I’m a bit better, like, and some days I’m a bit worse, and so it goes on. Your servant, sir,” he continued, with an old-fashioned bow to me. “Take a seat, sir. Sit you down, Superintendent — we keep a chair or two to sit in, you see. The doctor, he makes me keep out in the open air all day long — some folks would never stand it, but then, I’ve been used to outdoor life ever since I can remember.”
He motioned us to chairs which flanked the little table at which he himself sat and on which, among other things, was placed an object that had at once caught my attention and that I knew — having seen similar things in other parts of the dale country — to be a sheep-bell. This he took up and began to ring vigorously.
“That’s how I call Mira when I want aught,” he said with a smile. “They can hear that bell all over the house — I took it off one of my best sheep when I gave up farming. It’s an old bit, that — I’ll lay my great-great-grandfather had it once — and happen his father before him.”
He rang the bell again — twice. And at the last summons the door of the house opened and a woman appeared, making a little start of surprise as she saw her husband’s visitors. Then she smiled and came forward, giving her hand to Beverley.
“Nay!” she exclaimed. “I never thought to see you here, Mr. Beverley — you haven’t been to see us for I don’t know how long!”
“Haven’t been your way — at least on this side of the river — lately, Mrs. Heggus,” replied Beverley. He waved his hand in my direction. “Friend of mine, Mr. Camberwell,” he added. “I’ve just been giving him a ride round, like, and seeing Dakin sitting here, I thought we’d say how do.”
Mrs. Heggus gave me her hand — and a keen, if quick, glance; I felt sure that she knew quite well that I was the mysterious London gentleman who had suddenly appeared in this out-of-the-way Arcadia. On my part I looked at her — rather longer than she looked at me. I was sizing her up. In my estimate of her she was probably about twenty-eight years of age, rather over than under the medium height of women, with a remarkably good, well-developed figure and a trick of erectness that showed off her well-modelled shoulders and generous bosom. If not quite a beauty, she was an attractive woman to look at, having a mass of hair which was something between auburn and gold, a pair of eyes in which there was a prevailing tint of violet, and a mouth and chin which denoted a good deal of character. And, in contrast to the poor invalid, sitting wrapped up in his shawls and rugs, she looked what people call a picture of health and vigour.
