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

CHAPTER XI

 

Gimblet left the gun-room quietly; and after some more exploring

discovered the way to the back premises.

 

In the pantry he found Blanston, whom he invited to follow him to the

deserted billiard-room for a few minutes' conversation.

 

"You know," he told him, "Miss Byrne and your new young master want me to

examine the evidence that Sir David Southern is the author of this

terrible crime."

 

"I'm sure I wish, sir," said the man, "that you could prove he never did

A very nice young gentleman, sir, Sir David has always been; it seems

dreadful to think of him lifting his hand against his uncle. I'm sure it

ought to be a warning to us all to keep our tempers, but of course it was

very hard on Sir David to have his dog shot before his very eyes."

 

"No doubt," agreed Gimblet. "You weren't there when it happened, I

suppose?"

 

"No, sir, but I heard about it from one of the keepers, and Sir David was

very much put out about it, so he says; and I quite believe it, seeing

how fond he was of the poor creature. Always had it to sleep in his room,

he did, sir, though it was rather an offensive animal to the nose, to my

way of thinking. But these young gentlemen what are always smoking

cigarettes get to lose their sense of smell, I've often noticed that,

sir. Oh, I understand he was very angry indeed, sir, but I should hardly

have thought he would go so far as to take his uncle's life. Knowing him,

as I have done, from a child, I may say I shouldn't hardly have thought

it of him, sir."

 

"Life is full of surprises," said Gimblet, "and you never know for

certain what anyone may not do; but, tell me, you were the first on the

scene of the crime, weren't you?"

 

"Hardly that, sir. Miss Byrne was with his lordship at the time."

 

"Yes, yes, of course. But you saw him shortly after the shot was fired.

Did you hear the report?"

 

"No, sir. The hall is quite away from the tower, and so is the

housekeeper's room; and the walls are very thick. We were just finishing

supper, which was very late that night on account of the gentlemen coming

in late from stalking, and one thing and another. I'm rather surprised

none of us heard it, sir."

 

"I daresay there was a good deal of noise going on," said Gimblet. "How

many of you are there in the servants' quarters?"

 

"Counting the chauffeur and the hall boy," replied Blanston, "and

including the visitors' maids, who are gone now, we were sixteen servants

in the house that night. I am afraid there may have been rather a noise

going on."

 

"Were you all there?" asked Gimblet. "Had no one left since the beginning

of supper?"

 

"No one had gone out of the room or the hall since supper commenced,"

Blanston assured him. "We were all very glad of that afterwards, as it

prevented any of us being suspected, sir. Though in point of fact I was

saying only last night, when the second footman dropped the pudding just

as he was bringing it into the room, that we could really have spared him

better than what we could Sir David, sir; but of course it's natural for

the household to be feeling a bit jumpy till after the funeral to-morrow.

When that's over I shan't listen to no more excuses."

 

"Quite so," said Gimblet. "What was the first intimation you got that

there was anything wrong?"

 

"About half-past ten the billiard-room bell rang very loud, in the

passage outside the hall. Before it had stopped, and while I was calling

to George, the first footman, to hurry up and answer it, there came

another peal, and then another and another. I thought something must be

wrong, so I ran out of the room and upstairs with the others. When we got

to the billiard-room there was Miss Byrne fainting on a chair, and Mr.

McConachan beside her, looking very upset like. 'There's been an accident

or worse,' he says, 'to his lordship. Come on, Blanston, and let's see

what it is. And you others look after Miss Byrne. Fetch her maid; fetch

Lady Ruth.'

 

"And with that he makes for the library door, at a run, with me

following him close, though I was a bit puffed with coming upstairs so

fast. Just as we came to the library door, he turns and says to me, with

his hand on the knob, 'From what Miss Byrne says, Blanston, I'm afraid

it's murder.' And before I could more than gasp he had the door open,

and we were in the room.

 

"There was his poor lordship lying forward on the table, his head on the

blotting-book, and one arm hanging down beside him. Quite dead, he was,

sir, and his blood all on the floor, poor gentleman. We left him as we

found him, and went back.

 

"Mr. McConachan locked the door and put the key in his pocket. 'No one

must go in there till the police come,' he says. 'But in the meantime we

must get what men we can together, and see if the brute who did this

isn't lurking about the grounds. It will be something if we can catch

him, and avenge my poor uncle,' he said."

 

Gimblet considered for a moment.

 

"Are you sure you remember the position you found the body in?" he asked.

 

"Yes, sir," replied Blanston, in some surprise. "It was like I told you.

His head on the blotting-book and one arm with it. He must have fallen

straight forward on to the table."

 

"Thank you," said Gimblet. "One more question. I hear you witnessed a

will for Lord Ashiel a day or two before he died?"

 

"Yes, sir--I and Mrs. Parsons, the housekeeper."

 

"How did you know it was the will?"

 

"We didn't exactly know it was, sir, but afterwards, when it came out his

lordship had told Miss Byrne he had made one, we thought it must have

been that."

 

"I see," said Gimblet. "Thank you. That is all I wanted to know."

 

He sent for the other servants and interrogated them one by one, but

without adding anything fresh to what he had already learned.

 

He went thoughtfully away and sought out Mark in the smoking-room, where

he found him surrounded by packets of papers, which lay in heaps upon

the floor and tables.

 

"There's a frightful lot to look through," said the young man

despondently, looking up from his self-imposed task. "I haven't found

anything interesting yet. How did you get on? Do you think those

footmarks can possibly be anyone's but David's?"

 

"The boot you gave me fits them too well to admit of doubt, I'm afraid,"

said Gimblet. And as the other made a half-gesture of despair, "You must

give me more time," he said; "I may find some clue in the course of the

next two or three days. By the by, is your cousin a short man?"

 

"No," said Mark, "he's about my height. Why do you ask?"

 

"Oh, I had an idea," said Gimblet evasively. "But if he's as tall as you,

I had better begin again. I think I'll take a little stroll through the

grounds," he added, "and then back to Lady Ruth Worsfold's house, and get

a bath and a change."

 

"I shall see you at dinner-time," said Ashiel. "I am dining at the

cottage. Au revoir till then."

 

Gimblet went out of the front door, and proceeded to make a tour of the

Castle buildings.

 

Turning to his left round the front of the house, he passed the gun-room

door, and went down a short path, which led to the level of the servants'

quarters. These were built on the slope of the hill, so that what was a

basement in the front of the house was level with the ground at the back.

 

Here more remains of the old fortress were to be seen. The various

outbuildings that straggled down towards the loch had all once formed

part of old block-houses or outlying towers; and, as the path descended

farther down the hill, the detective found himself walking round the

precipitous rock from which the single great tower still standing--the

one in whose massive shell the room had been cut which was now the

library--dominated the scene from every side.

 

It had been built at the very edge of the hill which here fell almost

sheer to the level of the lake, and the old McConachans had no doubt

chosen their site for its unscalable position. Indeed, the place must

always have been impregnable from that side, the rock offering no

foothold to a goat till within twenty feet of the base of the tower,

where the surface was broken and uneven, and had, in places, been built

up with solid masonry. In the crevices up there, seeds had germinated and

grown to tall plants and bushes. Ivy hung about the face of the

escarpment like a scarf, and in one place a good-sized tree, a beech, had

established itself firmly upon a ledge and leant forward over the path

below in a manner that turned the beholder giddy. Its great roots had not

been able to grow to their full girth within the cracks and crannies of

the rocks; some of them had pushed their way in through the gaps in the

masonry, and the others curled and twisted in mid air, twining and

interlacing in an outspread canopy.

 

Beyond the tower ran the battlemented wall of the enclosed garden, its

foundations draped in the thrifty vegetation of the rocks.

 

At Gimblet's feet, on the other side of the path, brawled a burn,

hurrying on its way to the loch, and he followed its course slowly down

to the place where it mingled with the deep waters. A little beyond he

saw the point of a fir-covered peninsula, and wandered on under the

trees till he came to the end of it; there he sat down to think over what

he had heard and seen that afternoon. The wild beauty of the place

soothed and delighted him, and he felt lazily in his pocket for a

chocolate.

 

Below him, grey lichen-grown rocks jutted into the loch in tumbled,

broken masses, piled heedlessly one on the other, as if some troll of

the mountain had begun in play to make a causeway for himself. The great

stones, so old, so fiercely strong, stood knee-deep in the waters, over

which they seemed to brood with so patient and indifferent a dignity

that human life and affairs took on an aspect very small and

inconsiderable. They were like monstrous philosophers, he thought,

oblivious alike to time and to the cold waves that lapped their feet;

their heads crowned here and there with pines as with scattered locks,

the little tufts of heather and fern and grasses, that clung to them

wherever root hold could be found, all the clothing they wore against

the bitter blasts of the winds.

 

While he sat there a breeze got up and ruffled the loch; the ripples

danced and sparkled like a cinematograph, and waves threw themselves

among the rocks with loud gurglings and splashings. The air was suddenly

full of the noise and hurry of the waters. He got up and went to the end

of the peninsula. In spite of the dancing light upon the surface and the

merry sounds of the ripples, the water, he could see, was deep and dark;

a little way out a pale smooth stone rose a few feet above the level of

it, its top draped in a velvet green shawl of moss. A fat sea-gull sat

there; nor did it move when he appeared.

 

A little bay ran in between the rocks, its shore spread with grey sand,

smooth and trackless. At least so Gimblet imagined it at first, as his

eye roved casually over the beach. Then suddenly, with a smothered

ejaculation, he leaped down from his perch of observation, and made his

way to the margin of the water.

 

There, scored in the sand, was a deep furrow, reaching to within a foot

of the waves, where it stopped as if it had been wiped out from a slate

with a damp sponge. Gimblet had no doubt what it was. A boat had been

beached here, and that lately. A glance at the stones surrounding