Collected works of j s f.., p.845
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 845
The Chairman: “Your defence, then, Mr. Pybus, is an alibi?”
Mr. Pybus: “Precisely, your worship. When your worships have heard it, I think you will admit it to be the perfect alibi. Call Mr. Mawson Calvert.”
Mawson Calvert, a smart, well-dressed young fellow of probably twenty-five years of age, stepped into the box with something like a show of eagerness. I had noticed him when I first entered the court, sitting in company with another young man of similar appearance, who sat by a pretty girl, evidently his wife or his sister or, perhaps, his fiancée. Examined by Pybus his evidence was thus summarized in my book:
Witness said he was a junior partner in the firm of Samuel Calvert, Limited, manufacturers, of Wiseley. He knew the accused, Sugden Martenroyde, well — they were old schoolmates. On Monday, January 25th, Sugden came to him at the mill office at Wiseley, about ten minutes past six in the evening, just as he himself was leaving business for the day. Sugden said he wanted him to do something for him. Sugden had set off for London and had remembered when in the train that there was something he had left undone at Todmanhawe, so he had left the train on its arrival at Wiseley station. He wanted witness to drive him back to near Todmanhawe, and then, after he had done what he wanted to do, to Shipton, where, Sugden said, he could get a train to London early in the morning. Witness consented to do this and, his car being in the mill yard, he and Sugden got into it and went in the direction of Todmanhawe. On the way Sugden told him that what he wanted to do — the thing he had forgotten to do — was of a secret and confidential nature, and he didn’t want anybody to know anything about it. He asked witness to pull up his car at a certain place near Hartwick village and to wait there for him an hour, and witness agreed to this. They arrived at this place — a cross-roads — a little before half past seven and agreed to meet there again at half past eight. Sugden set off along the road to Todmanhawe. Witness, not wanting to spend an hour by himself on a wind-swept hillside, ran his car down the valley to Abbeyside and had a drink at the inn there. At half past eight he was back at the appointed meeting-place. Sugden came along the road from Todmanhawe a few minutes later, and they drove away towards Shipton. On the way witness asked Sugden what he would do with himself while waiting for the train Sugden had spoken of. Sugden replied that he would wait at one of the hotels in Shipton. Witness suggested that instead of doing that they should call on a friend and old schoolfellow of both, Mr. Charles Pollard, who lived in Shipton. Sugden agreed, and they drove to Mr. Pollard’s, arriving at his house soon after nine o’clock. They had supper at Mr. Pollard’s, and afterwards Mr. Pollard, his sister, Sugden, and witness played bridge until nearly two o’clock in the morning. At two o’clock Sugden left Mr. Pollard’s house to catch the Scotch express. Witness drove home to Wiseley. In answer to a final question from Pybus, witness said that from eight thirty o’clock on Monday evening, January 25th, until two o’clock on Tuesday morning, January 26th, Sugden Martenroyde was never out of his sight.
Questioned by Mr. Cordukes, witness said that he had no knowledge whatever as to Sugden’s movements between half past seven and half past eight on the Monday evening. Sugden did not tell him where he was going when he left the car at the cross-roads near Hartwick, nor mention the names of any persons he wanted to see. All Sugden ever said to him on those points was that he’d forgotten to do something very particular before leaving Todmanhawe and wanted to go back there for a few minutes. After rejoining him at half past eight, Sugden made no further reference to the matter.
Pybus now called Mr. Charles Pollard, but the Chairman intervened before Mr. Pollard could enter the witness-box.
“After the evidence we have just had, Mr. Pybus,” he said, “we consider that there is no necessity to hear further evidence. Mr. Pollard, I suppose, would corroborate Mr. Calvert as regards the accused’s movements and whereabouts from nine o’clock on the Monday evening?”
“Not only Mr. Pollard, your worship, but also Miss Maisie Pollard,” replied Pybus. “I propose to call both.”
“There is no need,” said the Chairman. “The bench is satisfied. Mr. Sugden Martenroyde is discharged.”
Pybus: “I ask for costs, your worship — on the ground that this is a prosecution which should never have been brought.”
Cordukes: “I submit, your worships, that my friend is not justified in making that assertion. This prosecution was started in the same way as any important prosecution is. It was not started by the Superintendent nor by his immediate superiors; it was started after due consideration by police headquarters and further consideration by their legal advisers. It would be a lamentable thing if the authorities, after such consideration, were ordered to pay the accused’s costs.”
The Chairman: “There will be no order as to costs.”
Eddison and I left the court on that. There was a great crowd outside the court-house, largely composed of Todmanhawe folk, and the result of the magisterial sitting was already known. It seemed to me a strange thing that the crowd was utterly silent; it just melted away, whispering. As for myself, I was wondering — wondering why Sugden Martenroyde got his friend to drive him back to Todmanhawe.
CHAPTER XIV. PLAN OF CAMPAIGN
BEVERLEY, BRIEFLY INTERVIEWED by Eddison and myself after the court proceedings were over, was plainly in high dudgeon. He had worked himself up into a state of firm belief in Sugden Martenroyde’s guilt, and to see his carefully built castle knocked to pieces by one discharge of matter-of-fact evidence from Mawson Calvert had given him a surprise from which he was slow to recover. To doubt Mawson Calvert’s word was — so Eddison said, knowing everybody in the district — absolutely impossible. Mawson belonged to a well-known trading family, of high repute thereabouts; so, too, did the brother and sister whose evidence the magistrates had not even troubled themselves to hear. All that had resulted from Beverley’s gathering of witnesses had been the establishment of Sugden’s innocence.
“Came a cropper there!” said Beverley, with a rueful grimace. “Got to begin all over again.”
Eddison and I went back to his house at Todmanhawe to talk things over. Somebody was responsible for James Martenroyde’s murder, and Eddison was not the man to let the thing figure as a nine days’ mystery and then to relapse into the category of problems which remain unsolved. And once more he commissioned me to go still further into the matter.
“Just tell me, frankly, how things strike you now, Camberwell,” he said. “Now, I mean, that Sugden’s cleared.”
“That’s a very difficult question to answer,” I replied. “I’m in this position — a stranger like myself has little or no chance of getting information from your Todmanhawe people. I’ve already seen that they won’t talk to me — an outsider. Probably you have here more than one person who could tell something, perhaps a good deal, but he or she or they won’t tell it to me. If I had any means of getting into their confidence—”
“For that matter, though I’ve lived here half my life, they wouldn’t tell me anything,” he interrupted. “Clan feeling. These folk can be as close as limpets if they think that one of the clan’s in danger. Yet there may be a way of hearing something.”
“Yes? What way?” I asked.
“Well, I’ve wondered if it would be of any use to offer a reward, a substantial reward — nothing less would do — for information,” he replied. “What do you think?”
“A very good idea,” I answered. “But — would anyone in possession of real information sell it if he or she knew that possibly a neighbour, even a friend, was going to be put in peril? What about the feeling you’ve just referred to?”
“They would — if they knew that what they told was to be told in absolute secrecy and confidence,” he replied. “Yes!”
“Then a reward is an excellent thing to offer,” I said. “If I could only get the merest clue—”
“You’ve no idea that you’re keeping to yourself?” he asked.
“I’ve a lot of ideas,” I said. “Perhaps not so much ideas as speculations — questions that I put to myself! Lots of ’em! Was there anybody in Martenroyde’s conservatory that night, listening to his talk to me about Sugden? He said it was a cat — it sounded to me like human footsteps, stepping softly — I even fancied I heard a door close. Then, why did Sugden Martenroyde turn in his tracks and get Mawson Calvert to drive him back to Todmanhawe? And whose was the figure that the old woman, Prissy Mallison, saw lurking about the churchyard gate? There are other questions.”
“Do you — from what you’ve heard and seen — actually suspect anyone?” he asked. “Say, if you do.”
But I was not going to answer that — at that time. I had a growing suspicion that Mrs. Martenroyde might turn out to be the murderer of her brother-in-law, but it was not sufficiently formed to warrant me in mentioning her name.
“I’ve scarcely got to that,” I replied. “I don’t know enough. I wish I had some assistance. If this were a case in, say, London, I could make use of two assistants, our junior partner, Chippendale, and our chief woman assistant, Fanny Pratt. But here, among these people, they’d be of no more use than the man in the moon. Your folk wouldn’t say a word to a couple of Cockneys!”
“What sort of assistance do you want?” he asked.
“What I want,” I answered, “is to find somebody, man or woman, who is in intimate touch with the Todmanhawe people — the villagers, mill-workers, and so on — somebody who can tell me what they are saying, thinking — possibly what they know. If we were elsewhere — London, for instance — my first step would be either to get hold of some such person or to introduce one of our own assistants into the concern with instructions to keep his or her eyes and ears open. But I can’t do that here — I’ve already seen enough of your people to realize that I’m a foreigner among them. They won’t give themselves away to outsiders.”
He smiled at that and for a minute or two sat silent, thinking.
“There may be means,” he said after a pause. “Do you happen to have noticed a red-headed damsel about this house, now?”
“A red-headed damsel?” I exclaimed. “No.”
“Oh, well, she doesn’t come into this part of the house much,” he said, “but she’s here, all the same. A niece of my housekeeper’s — her father and mother died about the same time a few years ago, and I told my housekeeper she could bring the lass here — she’d no other relations. She works at Martenroyde’s mill, and her name’s Avis Riley.”
“Yes?” I said.
“I think,” he went on, giving me a sly smile, “I think Avis might suit your purposes very well. She’ll know all that’s being said among the people.”
“Yes, but will she talk?” I asked.
“I think she might — if we talk to her,” he answered, again smiling. “We can try her, at any rate. I’ll go round to the housekeeper’s room and see if Avis is there. She’s a smart lass,” he went on as he rose and made for the door, “no fool — and if she warmed to the job, you’d find her invaluable. And she’d keep whatever we say to her to herself.”
He went off, to return a few minutes later, ushering in a young woman of apparently twenty years of age, whom I had certainly not seen before, for if I had I should not have forgotten her. To say that she was a red-headed damsel was to give a mild description of a mass of auburn hair clustered round a homely but highly intelligent face in which the prominent features were a pair of honest grey eyes, a decidedly snub, wide-nostrilled nose, and a mouth somewhat capacious and indicative, by the curve of the lips, of a certain amount of sly humour. Neatly gowned in a dull green which made a worthy setting to her general high colouring, this specimen of dale womanhood had brought her knitting with her, and when Eddison bade her be seated, she took a chair between him and myself and proceeded to click her needles as steadily as if he and I were mere pieces of furniture.
“Now, Avis,” said Eddison, “Mr. Camberwell and I want to have a bit of confidential talk with you. Mr. Camberwell’s here to help me in trying to find out the secret about Mr. Martenroyde’s death — murder, to be plain. Mr. Camberwell’s a famous detective, you see, and—”
“That’s what some of ’em are saying down at the mill, Mr. Eddison,” interrupted the girl. “They sized Mr. Camberwell up pretty quick.”
“Oh, they did, did they?” said Eddison, with a glance at me. “They’ve labelled him already?”
“Well, you see, Mr. Eddison, Mr. Camberwell went about with the Superintendent,” replied Avis, “so they made it up that he was a plain-clothes policeman from London. They knew he wasn’t a business gentleman.”
“There you are, Camberwell!” said Eddison. “They’ve seen through you — trust ’em for that! Well—”
“Besides, Mr. Eddison,” interrupted Avis, “there was what Mr. Camberwell said in Shipton police court this morning — it was all over the mill before the afternoon was over.”
“Ay — to be sure it would be,” assented Eddison. “I’d forgotten that. Well, now, my lass, Mr. Camberwell wants a bit of help. So do I. We must find out who killed James Martenroyde. And as you work down there and hear a lot of talk, we want you to tell us what’s being said and what has been said since James Martenroyde’s death.”
The girl knitted steadily and silently for a minute or two. When she spoke, it was without lifting her eyes from the rapidly moving needles.
“It’s between ourselves, Mr. Eddison,” she said quietly. “I don’t want anything that I say to get back to them folks down there. They’d have the skin off my back if they knew I told aught.”
“Oh, you can be sure of that, my lass,” replied Eddison. “Absolutely private and confidential — anything you say.”
But Avis turned to me, giving me a straight, steady, searching look.
“I would like to hear Mr. Camberwell say that, too,” she said. “Us Yorkshire folk like to know who we’re talking to.”
“It’s my job to respect confidence,” I said. “Anything that you tell me will be as if I’d never heard it — so far as repeating it goes.”
“Well, I think you look a straight ‘un,” she answered frankly. “And no doubt Mr. Eddison’ll go bail for you. Of course I do hear a good deal, and have heard a good deal — they do naught but talk about it down yonder.”
“And they say — what?” asked Eddison.
“All sorts of things, Mr. Eddison,” replied Avis. “One says one thing, and one another.”
“Such as — what?” said Eddison. “Tell us some of these things.”
“Well, there’s one thing they’re all agreed on, Mr. Eddison,” replied Avis. “They all say that the Mill House folk are at the bottom of it, all because Mr. Martenroyde was going to be married to Miss Houston. The Mill House lot were going to have their noses put out, so Mr. Martenroyde had to be shifted before he could pull it off. But as to how it was done, and who did it, they differ. One lot says that the truth hasn’t come out and never will, because Mrs. Martenroyde’s too clever — that lot say she worked it all. And there’s another lot says that evidence that was given at the police court today was all cleverly got up, and that young Calvert said what he did to shield Sugden. They’ve all got ideas of their own, you see. But it all comes to what I said — that the Mill House folk know more than they’ll ever tell. There are some of ’em,” concluded Avis, with a click of her needles, “what I call whisperers, that say that Mrs. Martenroyde did it. They think she’d a row with Mr. Martenroyde that night and struck him.”
“You’ve picked all this up?” asked Eddison. “They don’t talk of it openly?”
“Why, Mr. Eddison, you know well enough how folk talk,” replied Avis. “They talk amongst themselves, in holes and corners. If you were to talk to them, they’d say naught — at least, naught much. They’re always afraid, as you know, that if they said aught that you’d call straightforward, they’d be made to prove it. Between themselves it’s different.”
“The general impression, then, is that the Mill House people were concerned — is that it?” said Eddison. “They’re suspected?”
“Why, who else could there be?” asked Avis. “Somebody killed Mr. Martenroyde. And what they say is that you couldn’t find man or woman amongst us mill-folk that would have lifted a hand against Mr. Martenroyde — no, nor anybody in this neighbourhood. He was liked, was Mr. Martenroyde. And you know, Mr. Eddison, they’ve all of ’em got their knives into Mrs. Martenroyde — they’d be glad enough if it was fastened on her!”
“Why?” asked Eddison.
“Because of what she said when Mr. Martenroyde was found,” replied Avis. “She said — so it was reported — that some of the mill-folk had done it. And they’ll never forgive her for that. She did for herself when she said a thing like that — they’ve stored it up against her.”
Eddison and I exchanged glances. We both remembered the incident to which Avis referred, and the protest made, at once, by one of the workmen.
“You know what our folks are, Mr. Eddison,” continued Avis. “They won’t stand for what they consider an injustice. There isn’t a man or woman in that mill that’ll ever forgive Mrs. Martenroyde for what she said that night, because they felt it was accusing one and all. And if they could pin it down on her they would, I can tell you!”
“But you’ve never heard anything, any little rumour, that would help to pin it down on her?” asked Eddison. “Any mere incident that would show she’d something to do with it?”
But Avis shook her vividly coloured head.
“Nay,” she answered, “I’ve never heard aught of that sort. If anybody knew anything, it would come out.”
Eddison turned to me.
“Now, Camberwell,” he said, “can you suggest any way in which this young lady can help?”
“Yes,” I replied promptly. “Can she find out for me why Mrs. Martenroyde keeps that house of hers like a castle — refusing entrance to anybody unless she herself happens to be at home?”
