The Ashiel Mystery, Mrs. Charles Bryce [e novels to read online .txt] 📗

at last, I managed to stand up, and clinging,

faint and giddy, to the back of a chair, looked again at the motionless

figure that sprawled across the writing-table, there was a great pool of

blood on the polished oak of the floor beneath it, which grew slowly

broader, as drop after drop dripped down to swell it. With a great effort

I conquered my faintness, and staggered out of the room and down the

long passage.

 

"In the billiard-room Mr. McConachan was still practising his game. He

must have been making a break, for I remember hearing him speak, as I

opened the door. 'Twenty-seven,' he said aloud. My voice wouldn't come,

and I stood holding on to the doorpost, while he, with his back to me,

went on potting the red.

 

"'That you, Miss Byrne?' he said, without looking round. Then, as I

didn't answer, he glanced up and saw by my face, I suppose, that

something was very wrong. He came quickly to me, his cue in his hand.

'What's the matter?' he said. 'Do you feel ill?' 'Lord Ashiel is dead,' I

said; 'in the library. Some one shot him. Didn't you hear?' 'Dead?' he

cried; 'Uncle Douglas shot! Do you know what you're saying! I heard a

shot, it is true, five minutes ago, but surely that was the keeper

shooting an owl or something.'

 

"I shook my head. 'He is dead,' I repeated dully. He looked at me, still

incredulous, and then darted forward and caught me by the arm. 'Here, sit

down,' he said, and half pushed, half led me to a chair. I saw him run to

the bell and tug violently at the rope. Then I believe I fainted again.

 

"I think that is all there is to tell you, Mr. Gimblet. You know already

that the murderer got clear away, and the next morning footmarks were

found outside the window which proved to have been made by Sir David

Southern. I was so idiotic, when I was questioned, as to mention having

spoken to him outside the gun-room door, and to repeat, incidentally,

that he had said he had been cleaning his rifle. I never dreamt that

anyone could be so mad as to suspect him. But they looked at the rifle,

and found that it was dirty, so that it must have been discharged again

since I saw him. And it appears he did not join in the search for the

murderer, and was not seen until it was all over. And so they arrested

him and took him away. No amount of evidence could ever make me believe

for a moment that he had a hand in this dreadful thing, but oh, Mr.

Gimblet, I see only too well how black it looks against him. What shall I

do if you, too, now that I have told you everything, think he did it? You

don't, do you?"

 

"My dear young lady," said the detective. "I really can't give you an

opinion at present. There are a score of points I must investigate, a

dozen other people besides yourself whom I must question, before I can

form any kind of conclusion. I hope that Sir David Southern may prove to

be a much wronged man. But beyond that I can't go, just at present; and I

shouldn't build too much on my help if I were you. I'm not infallible;

far from it. And I certainly can't prove him innocent if he is guilty."

 

He stood up, shaking the sand out of his clothes.

 

"Let us go on, up to the castle," he said.

 

The gates were near at hand; in silence they breasted the steep incline

of the drive, which wound and zigzagged up between high banks covered

with rhododendron and bracken, and grown over with trees. After a quarter

of a mile these gave place to an abrupt, grass covered slope, whose top

had been smoothed and levelled by the hand of man, and from which on the

far side rose the castle of Inverashiel, its stout and ancient framework

disguised and masked by the modern addition to the building which faced

the approach; a mass of gabled and turreted stonework in the worst style

of nineteenth century architecture which in Scotland often took on a

shape and semblance even more fantastically repulsive than it assumed in

the south. The great tower that formed the principal remaining portion of

the old building could just be discerned over the top of the flaring

façade, but the nature of the site was such that most of the ancient

fortress was invisible from that part of the grounds. Juliet stopped at

the turn of the road.

 

"I will leave you here," she said, "you will not want me, I suppose?

After you have finished, will you come to Lady Ruth Worsfold's house, and

tell me what you think? It is just past the station turning; you will

easily find your way, though the house is hidden by the trees. Your

luggage will be there already, as Lady Ruth is going to put you up."

 

Mr. Mark McConachan, or rather Lord Ashiel, as he had now become, was in

the act of ending a solitary meal, when Gimblet was announced. He went

to meet the detective, forcing to his trouble-lined face a smile of

welcome that lit up the large melancholy eyes with an expression few

people could resist.

 

"I thought it was another of those newspaper fellows, but, thank

goodness, I believe they're all gone now," he said. "I am exceedingly

glad to see you, Mr. Gimblet. I should myself have asked you to come to

our aid, but I found that Miss Byrne had been before me. I suppose you

have seen her?"

 

"Yes," said Gimblet. "She met me at the station. I'm afraid I'm rather

late on the scene. I hear that the Glasgow police have come and gone,

taking with them the author of the crime."

 

"It is a dreadful business altogether," returned young Ashiel. "I don't

know which part of it is the worst. There's my uncle dead, shot down like

a rat by some cold-blooded scoundrel; and now my cousin David, poor chap,

in jail, and under charge of murder. It seems impossible to believe it of

him, and yet, what is one to believe? One can only suppose that he must

have been off his head if he did it. But have you had lunch, Mr. Gimblet?

Sit down and have something to eat first of all; you can ask me any

questions you wish while you are eating."

 

And he insisted on Gimblet's doing as he suggested.

 

"The household is naturally a bit disorganized," he said when the

servants had left the room and the detective was busy with some cold

grouse. "I had a cold lunch myself to save trouble; would you rather

have something hot? I expect that a chop or something could be produced,

if you are cold after your journey."

 

Gimblet assured him that he could like nothing better than what he

already had.

 

"You have had Macross up here, haven't you?" he asked. "It is really

disappointing to find the whole thing over before I arrive. I am afraid

there is nothing left for me to do."

 

Mark looked at him quickly. Was it possible he accepted Macross's verdict

without inquiring further himself?

 

"We are hoping you will undo what has been done," he said. "I look to you

to get my cousin out of prison. Surely there must be some other

explanation than that he did it. I simply won't believe it."

 

"If there is any other explanation," said Gimblet, "I will try and

find it; but the affair looks bad against Sir David Southern from what

I can hear."

 

"Why should he have shot through the window?" said Ashiel. "They were

both in the same house. Why should my cousin go into the garden, when

he had nothing to do but to open the library door and shoot, if he

wanted to?"

 

"Oh," said Gimblet, "ordinary caution would suggest the garden. He did

not know perhaps, whether his uncle would be alone; and as a matter of

fact, he was not, was he?"

 

"No, Miss Byrne was with him. By Jove," said Mark, bending forward to

light a cigarette, "I shall never forget the fright it gave me when I

saw her face. She looked as if--oh, she looked perfectly ghastly! I was

in the billiard-room when she came in, as white as a sheet, and stood

there without speaking for a minute, while I imagined every sort of

catastrophe except the real one. And all the time I kept thinking it

would turn out to be nothing really, as likely as not; women will look

hideously frightened and upset if they cut their finger, or see a rat,

or think they hear burglars. One never knows. And then at last she got

out a few words, 'Lord Ashiel has been shot,' or something of the sort,

and fainted."

 

"What did you do?" asked Gimblet.

 

"Well, I had to see to her, you know. I couldn't very well leave her in

that state, could I? I hung on to the bell for all I was worth, and the

butler and footmen came running. I told them to look after the young lady

and to call her maid, and then I ran off to the library, followed by old

Blanston, the butler. You know what we found there. My poor old uncle,

dead as a door nail; a hole in the window where the bullet came in, and

the floor around him all covered with blood. Ugh!" Mark shuddered, "it

was horrid. We only stayed to make sure he was dead, and then we left him

as we had found him and rushed back to rouse the rest of the household,

and to start a chase after the murderer. Of course the first person I

looked for was David Southern, but he wasn't to be found, so I and three

menservants ran out at once with sticks and lanterns, and hunted all over

the grounds without seeing or hearing anything or anyone. The hall boy

had been sent down to fetch up the stablemen and chauffeur, and to rout

out some of the gardeners and anyone else he could find, so that we were

a decently large party, and I don't think there was an inch of ground we

didn't go over, of all that lies within the policies. The murderer,

however, had plenty of time to get right away, and as it was hopeless to

scour the whole country side in that darkness--for it was as black as

your hat--I decided, after an hour of groping about in the shrubberies,

that we must leave off and wait for daylight."

 

"What time was it when you abandoned the hunt?" asked Gimblet.

 

"It was past midnight. I didn't see that any good could be done by

sitting up all night. On the contrary, I thought it important that we

should get some sleep while we could, so as to be fresher for the chase

when daylight came. At this time of the year it gets light fairly early,

so I sent every one to bed, except two of the ghillies, whom I told to

row across the loch to Crianan and fetch the doctor and police, which I

suppose I ought to have thought of before. Then I went to bed myself."

 

"And when did Sir David Southern turn up?" asked Gimblet.

 

"Oh, he appeared soon after we started to beat the policies. I hadn't

time then to ask him where he'd been, and he was as keen on catching

the murderer as anyone. Of course it never occurred to me to

cross-question him."

 

"Naturally. Please go on with your narrative."

 

"Well, we slept, to speak for myself, for three or four hours, and then

James and Andrew came back with the people I had sent for. And now, Mr.

Gimblet, I come to a strange thing, a thing I've been careful not to

mention to anyone but you, though I'm afraid it's bound to come out at

the trial. When Blanston and I went out of the library, we locked the

door behind us, but when I opened it again, to let in the doctor and the

police, my uncle's body had been moved."

 

"Moved? How?" Gimblet repeated after him.

 

"Oh, not far, but it had been touched by some one, I am ready to swear,

though I said nothing about it at the time. When we first found him, he

was lying forward on the table with one arm under his head and the other

hanging beside him. When I went in for the second time he was sitting

sideways in his chair with his head and arm in quite a different place.

Instead of being in the middle, on the blotting-pad, they were further to

the right, on the bare polished