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

leading back to the lawn, and over these Gimblet stooped with

particular interest.

 

With a tape measure, which he took from his pocket, he measured the

distances between the prints, entering the various figures in his

notebook, beside carefully drawn diagrams. Then he picked his way to the

edge of the lawn, and stood a moment considering.

 

Apparently he was not satisfied, for presently he retraced his steps

delicately to the middle of the bed, till he was once more just behind

the place where the earth was trodden down. After pausing there an

instant, he turned once more, and ran quickly back to the grass, without

this time troubling himself to step in the chain of footprints used

previously by the police. But he had not even yet finished; and was soon

crouching down again, with the tape measure in one hand and the notebook

in the other, poring over the evidence preserved so carefully by the

impartial soil.

 

At last he got up, put his measure back in his pocket, and walked slowly

towards the hedge. He had nearly reached it when something at his feet

arrested his attention. He bent over it curiously.

 

Near the edge of the grass and parallel to it, there was an indentation a

little over an inch wide and about the same depth. It extended in a

straight line for perhaps nine inches, and what could have caused it was

a puzzle to Gimblet. The turf was unbroken, and it looked as if an

oblong, narrow, heavy object had rested there, sinking a little into the

ground so as to leave this strange mark. Gimblet rubbed his forehead

pensively, as he looked at it.

 

Suddenly as his introspective gaze wandered unconsciously over the ground

before him, his attention was arrested by a second mark of the same

perplexing shape, which he could see behind a rose-bush, more than

half-way across the bed. Stepping as near the hedge as he could, the

detective proceeded to examine this duplicate of the riddle. It seemed

absolutely the same, though deeper, as was natural on the soft mould, and

he found, by measuring, that it lay exactly parallel to the other. What

could it be, he asked himself. A moment later, still another and yet

stranger impression caught his eye. It was about the same width, but not

more than half as long, and rounded off at each end to an oval. It was

situated about a foot from the deep indentation and rather farther from

the holly hedge. A tall standard rose-tree, covered with blossoms of the

white Frau Karl Drouski rose, grew near it, interposing between it and

the house.

 

Gimblet measured it with painstaking precision; then with the help of

his measurements, he made a life-size diagram of it on the page of his

notebook, and studied it with an expression of annoyance. He had seldom

felt more at a loss to explain anything. At length he turned and went

back towards the grass.

 

"What a track I leave," he thought to himself, looking down ruefully at

his own footprints. "What I want is--" He stopped abruptly as a sudden

idea struck him; then a look of relief stole slowly over his face, and he

permitted himself a gratified smile, "To be sure!" he said, and seemed to

dismiss the subject from his mind.

 

Indeed, he turned his back upon the rose-bed, and strolled away by the

side of the hedge, which was of tall and wide proportions, providing a

spiky, impenetrable defence against observation, from the outside, of the

rectangular enclosed garden. Half-way along it he came upon an arched

opening. Passing through this, he found himself in an outer thicket, and

immediately upon his right hand beheld a small shed, which stood back,

modest and unassuming, in a leafy undergrowth of rhododendrons.

 

Gimblet pushed open the door and stepped inside.

 

The place was evidently a tool-house, used by the gardeners for storing

their implements. Rakes, spades, forks and hoes leant against the walls;

a shelf held a quantity of odds and ends: trowels, seedsmen's catalogues,

a pot of paint, a bundle of wooden labels, the rose of a watering-can,

and a dozen other small objects. On the floor were piled boxes and empty

cases; flowerpots stood beside a bag which bore the name of a patent

fertilizer; a small hand mowing-machine blocked the entrance; and a

plank, too long to lie flat on the ground, had been propped slantwise

between the floor and the roof. Bunches of bass hung from nails above the

shelf; and on the wall opposite, a coloured advertisement, representing

phloxes of so fierce an intensity of hue that nature was put to the

blush, had been tacked by some admirer of Art.

 

Five minutes later, when Gimblet emerged once more into the open, he

carried in one hand a garden rake. With this he proceeded to thread his

way through the shrubbery, keeping close to the line of the holly hedge.

When he thought he had gone about fifty yards, he lay down and peered

under the leaves. The hedge was rather thinner at the bottom; and, by

carefully pushing aside a little of the glossy, prickly foliage, he was

able to make out that the end of the rose-bed he had lately examined was

separated from him now only by the dividing barrier of the hedge. With

the rake still in his hand, he drew himself slowly forward, gingerly

introducing his head and arms under the holly, till he was prevented

from going farther by the close growing trunks of the trees that formed

the hedge.

 

It took some manoeuvring to insert the head of the rake through the

fence, but he did it at last, and found a gap which his arms would pass

also. Between, and under the lowest fringe of leaves on the farther side,

he could see the track of his own footsteps, where he had walked on the

bed. They were all, by an effort, within reach of his rake, and he

stealthily effaced them. He could not see whether the garden was still

untenanted, or whether the peculiar phenomenon of a rake moving without

human assistance was being observed by anyone from the castle. He

fervently hoped that it was not: he did not wish the attention of anyone

else to be called to the puzzling marks that had mystified him; and, as

the only window which looked into the garden was that of the library, he

thought there was a good chance that there was no one in sight.

 

Cautiously and almost silently he worked his way back, and replaced the

rake in the tool-house where he had found it. Then he took the small

oil-can used for oiling the mowing-machine, and concealing it under his

coat made towards the house. The little garden was still lonely and

deserted as he walked quickly over the lawn and in at the passage door.

 

The library was empty as he had left it, and his first act was to draw

back the curtains to their former positions on either side of the window.

Then he went to the door, and, with a glance to right and left along the

passage, and an ear bent for any approaching footstep, he quickly and

effectually oiled the hinges and lock, so that the door closed

noiselessly and without protest. When he was quite satisfied on this

point, he shut it gently, and took back the oil-can to the shed.

 

"Now," said he to himself, "for the gun-room."

 

He took up Sir David Southern's shooting-boots, which he had left in the

tool-house during his last proceedings, and made his way through the

billiard-room into the main corridor beyond. On his right, through an

open door, he peeped into a large room, obviously the drawing-room, and

saw that it looked on to the front of the house. The room wore a forlorn

aspect; no one, apparently, had taken the trouble to put it straight

since the night of the tragedy. The blinds had been drawn down, but the

furniture seemed awry as if chairs had been pushed back hastily, a little

card table still displayed a game of patience half set out, and even the

dead flowers in the glasses had not been thrown away.

 

The air was stuffy in the extreme, and Gimblet, with a disgusted sniff,

pulled aside one of the blinds and threw open the window. But all at once

a thought seemed to strike him. For a moment he stood irresolute, then he

slowly closed the casement again, but without latching it, and after

frowning at it thoughtfully walked away. He went back into the hall.

 

Opposite, across the corridor, rose the main staircase, wide and

imposing; on each side of it a smaller passage led away at right angles

to the entrance, the right-hand one giving access to rooms in the new

front of the castle, one of which he knew to be the dining-room. He

listened for a minute outside a door beyond it, and heard the sound of

rustling papers; the smell of tobacco came to him through the key-hole.

It was plain that here was the smoking-room, and that the new Lord Ashiel

was at that moment engaged in it, and deep in his uncle's papers.

 

The little detective, as he had said, preferred to work without an

audience when he could, so he left Mark to his search, and stole silently

away down the passage.

 

He passed two more rooms, and paused at the last door, opposite the foot

of a winding stair.

 

This, from what Juliet had said, must be the door of the gun-room.

 

The door opened readily at his touch, and he stepped inside and shut it

behind him.

 

It was a small bare room, with one large deal table in the middle of it.

Gun-cases and wooden cartridge-boxes were ranged on the linoleum-covered

floor, and three glass-fronted gun-cabinets were hung upon the walls.

One, the smallest of these, was of a different wood from the others, and

bore in black letters the initials D. S.

 

Three or four guns were ranged in it: two 12-bore shot-guns, an air-gun,

and a little 20-bore. Another rack was empty; no doubt it had held the

Mannlicher rifle, which the police had carried away to use as evidence

in their case for the prosecution. The door was locked and there was no

sign of a key.

 

Gimblet turned to the other cupboards.

 

There were more weapons here, and a few minutes' examination showed him

that, as Mark had said, he and his uncle were less particular as to where

their guns were kept, for the first two that the detective glanced at

bore Lord Ashiel's initial, and the next was an old air-gun with M. McC.

engraved on a silver disk at the stock.

 

Side by side were the rifles used by the uncle and nephew for stalking,

Gimblet knew from Mark that the Mannlicher was his, while Lord Ashiel had

apparently used a Mauser or Ross sporting rifle, as there was one of each

in the case.

 

Gimblet lifted down the Mannlicher and laid it on the table. This, then,

was the kind of weapon with which the deed had been done. It was a .355

Mannlicher Schonauer sporting weapon of the latest pattern. He opened it

and examined the mechanism, which he soon grasped. He squinted down the

glistening tunnel of the barrel and even closely scrutinized the

workmanship of the exterior, repressing a shudder at the meretricious

design of the chasing on the lock, and passing his fingers caressingly

over the wood of which the stock was made. It shone with a rich bloom, as

smooth and even as polished marble, except at the butt end which was

criss-crossed roughly to prevent slipping; but wood in any shape has a

homely friendly feeling, as different from any the polisher can impart to

a piece of cold stone as the forests, where it once stood, upright and

lofty, are from the inhospitable rocks on the peaks above them.

 

These unpractical reflections flitted through the detective's mind,

together with others of a less fantastic nature, as he put the rifle back

in the rack he had taken it from. He closed the glass doors of the

cabinet, leaving them unlocked, as he had found them. Then, going back to

the table, he took an empty pill-box from his pocket, and with the utmost

care swept into it a trace of dust from off the bare deal top.

 

There was barely enough to darken the cardboard at the bottom of the box,

but he looked at it, before putting on the lid, with an expression of

some satisfaction.