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

and handed it to the detective, who

opened it and read as follows:

 

"Si Milord ne rend pas ce qu'il ne doit pas garder, le coup de foudre lui

tombera sur la tête."

 

There was no signature, nor any date.

 

Gimblet turned the sheet over thoughtfully. The message was typewritten

on a piece of thin foreign paper; the postmark on the envelope was Paris,

and the stamps French. He folded it again and replaced it in its cover.

 

"It seems the usual threatening anonymous communication," he observed.

"Have you any idea who it's from?"

 

Mark shook his head.

 

"None," he confessed. "It looks, though, as if my uncle had in his

possession something belonging to the writer, doesn't it? Don't you

think it might have something to do with the murder?"

 

"I don't see why the murderer should send a threatening letter after the

deed was done," said the detective. "Still less could he have posted it

in Paris on the very day the crime was committed."

 

"No, that's true enough," Mark admitted reluctantly.

 

"Has any suspicious looking person been seen about this place, this

summer? Any foreigner, for instance?" asked the detective.

 

"No; no," Mark replied. "I should have heard of it for certain if there

had been. It would have been an event, down here."

 

Gimblet dropped the subject.

 

"If I may," he said. "I will keep this. It may lead to something,"

he added, tucking the letter away in an inside pocket. "That's all,

I suppose?"

 

Mark was silent for a minute. He seemed to be thinking.

 

"That's all I know about the murder," he said at last, "but there are

plenty of complications apart from that. I suppose Miss Byrne told you

that my uncle electrified us all by saying she was his daughter, only an

hour or so before he died?"

 

Gimblet nodded. "Yes," he said, "she told me."

 

"It makes it very awkward for me," said Mark. "I want to do the right

thing, but I'm hanged if I know what I ought to do. You see, my uncle

used to say that he'd left his property between me and David; he never

made any secret of it, and as a matter of fact I've had a communication

from his London lawyers, telling me they have a very old will, made when

I was a small boy, long before the birth of his son, and that everything

is left to me. There were reasons why he may have thought David would be

provided for--he was engaged to marry a very rich American, but she

dropped him yesterday like a red-hot coal as soon as it began to look as

if he'd be suspected. She's gone now, I'm glad to say. As a matter of

fact, if David can only be cleared of this horrible charge, I shall

insist on dividing my inheritance with him. That is, if I can't get Miss

Byrne to take it, or Miss McConachan, as I ought to call her now."

 

"Lord Ashiel could leave his money where he liked, couldn't he?"

Gimblet inquired.

 

"Yes, he could, but he would naturally have left it to his daughter, if

she really was his daughter. In fact, Miss McConachan says he told her he

had done so, but I haven't come across the will so far, though I had a

good hunt through his papers this morning; Blanston and the housekeeper,

who say they witnessed some document which may have been a will, have no

idea where it is. Of course, my uncle may have intended to say that he

was going to make one, and Miss McConachan may have misunderstood him,

but she seems to think he had some secret hiding-place of his own, and I

hope to goodness you'll be able to hit on it, if he had. I can't stand

the idea of profiting by a lost will, and I'd far rather simply hand over

the money than bother to look for this missing paper."

 

"Oh, I daresay it will turn up," said Gimblet. "You haven't had much time

to find it yet."

 

"My uncle was a very methodical man. Everything is in its place. You wait

till you see his papers! If he made a will he must have hidden it

somewhere where we shall never dream of looking for it. It's just waste

of time hunting about, and I shall have another try at persuading my new

cousin to let me make over everything to her."

 

"It is not every young man in your position who would part so readily

with a large fortune," observed Gimblet.

 

But Mark awkwardly deprecated his approving words.

 

"Oh," he said, "I'm sure any decent chap would do the same in my place."

CHAPTER X

 

"And now," said Gimblet, "may I visit the scene of the crime?"

 

Mark took him first to his uncle's bedroom; a room austere in its

simplicity, with bare white-washed walls and uncarpeted floor. No one

could have hidden a sheet of paper in that room, thought the detective,

as he gazed round it, after he had looked, with a feeling akin to

guilt, on the features of the dead peer. He had not known how to

protect this man from the dreadful fate that had struck him down from a

direction so utterly unexpected, and he held himself, in a way,

responsible for his death.

 

Then young Ashiel led him away, down a wide corridor into the

billiard-room, and so into another passage, at the end of which a door of

stout and time-darkened oak gave access to the library. It creaked

noisily on its hinges, as he pushed it open and ushered Gimblet in. They

stepped into a square room, comfortably furnished, with deep arm-chairs,

and a large chippendale writing-table which stood at right angles to the

bow window, so placed that anyone writing at it should have the light

upon his left. It was rather a dark room, the walls being lined with

books from floor to ceiling, except at two points: opposite the window an

alcove, panelled in ancient oak, appeared in the wall; and above the

fireplace, opposite the door, the wall was panelled in the same manner

and covered by an oil painting, representing Lord Ashiel's grandmother.

The polished boards were unconcealed by any rug or carpet, and reflected

a little of the light from the window. An ominous discoloration near the

writing-table showed plainly upon them.

 

In the glass of the mullioned casement was the small round hole made by

the fatal bullet.

 

Gimblet glanced at the bureau on which the writing materials were set out

in perfect order, and could not conceal his annoyance.

 

"Everything has been moved, I see," he said. "Why couldn't they leave it

as it was for a few hours longer?"

 

"Nothing was touched till after the police had gone," said Mark. "I

confess I did not think it necessary to leave things alone once they were

out of the house. Not only have the housemaids been at work in here, but

I spent most of the morning here myself, going through the papers in that

bureau. Will it matter much?" He spoke with evident dismay.

 

"Never mind," said Gimblet, "I suppose Macross's people photographed

everything, and I can get copies from them, I have no doubt. By the by,

what did Sir David Southern say about having been in the room while you

were in bed? Did he admit it; and did he say why he moved the body?"

 

"He said he'd not been near the place," replied Mark, looking more

perplexed and worried than ever. "I can't understand it at all," he

added. "Why should he deny it to me?"

 

Gimblet opened a drawer in the bureau. Papers filled it, tied together in

bundles and neatly docketed. They seemed to be receipted bills. He

glanced at the pigeon-holes, and opened one or two more drawers.

Everywhere the most fastidious order reigned.

 

"You have been through all these?" he asked.

 

"Yes, but there is a cupboard full in the smoking-room. I thought of

looking into those this afternoon."

 

"It would be a good plan," Gimblet agreed. "Don't let me keep you," And

as the young man still lingered, "I prefer," he confessed, "to do my

work alone. If you will kindly get me a shooting-boot of Sir David

Southern's, I shall do better if I am left to myself."

 

"If that is really the case," said Mark, "I have no choice but to leave

you. I admit I should have liked to see your methods, but if I should be

a hindrance--"

 

Gimblet did not deny it, and Mark departed to fetch the boots.

 

"This is not the identical pair," he said when he returned. "The police

took those; but these come from the same maker and are nearly the same,

so Blanston tells me."

 

"Ah, yes, Blanston," said Gimblet. "I must see him presently. Thanks

very much."

 

Left alone, Gimblet examined the window, opening one of the small-paned

casements, and measuring the space between the mullions and the central

bars of iron. Satisfied as to the impossibility of any ordinary-sized

person passing through those apertures, he took one more look round, and

then with a swift movement drew each of the heavy curtains across the

bay. They did not quite meet in the middle, as Juliet had observed. Then

he made his way out into the garden through the door just outside, at the

end of the passage which led from the billiard-room to the library.

 

The library was at the far end of the oldest portion of Inverashiel

Castle. To Gimblet, examining it from the outside, it looked as if the

room had been hewn out of the solid walls of the ancient fortress; for

beyond the mullioned, seventeenth-century window, the wall turned sharply

to the left and was continued with scarce a loophole in the stupendous

blocks of its surface for a distance of fifty yards or so, where it was

succeeded by the lower, less heavy battlements of the old out-works. In

the angle formed by the turn and immediately opposite the window of the

library, a long flower-bed, planted with standard and other rose trees,

with violas growing sparsely in between, stretched its blossoming length,

and continued up to the actual stones of the library wall. At the farther

end of it, a thick hedge of holly bordered on the roses at right angles

to the end of the battlements; while the lawn on his left was spangled

with geometrically shaped beds showing elaborate arrangements of

heliotrope, ageratum, calceolarias, and other bedding-out plants.

 

Gimblet walked slowly along the lawn at the edge of the bed, his eyes on

the black peaty mould, where it was visible among the flowers. About

twenty yards from the hedge, he stopped with a muffled exclamation. The

bed in front of him was covered with footprints of all shapes and sizes;

but plainly distinguishable among the rest were the neat nail-encrusted

marks which matched the boot he held in his hand. He put it down on the

ground and carefully made an imprint with it in the soil, beside the

existing footmarks. It was easy to single out its fellows.

 

"Two extra nails," murmured Gimblet to himself, "but otherwise, the same.

Probably made on the same last."

 

Stepping cautiously in the places where his predecessors had walked, he

followed the tracks that had betrayed Sir David Southern. They were

numerous and distinct; he counted fourteen of each separate foot. First

Sir David would seem to have walked straight across the bed, then

returned and taken up his position near the middle. He was not contented

with that, it seemed, for he had walked backwards five or six paces and

then moved sideways again till he was exactly opposite the opening

between the curtains. Here the ground was trampled down as if he had

several times shifted slightly from one place to another. Whether or not

he was exactly in line with the writing-table Gimblet could not see, as

its position was hidden in the obscurity behind the drawn curtains. It

would want a light there to prove that, thought Gimblet; still there was

no reason to doubt that it was so. There were four or five more

footmarks