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

very kind, friendly light in

his eyes. But as she exclaimed joyfully and pressed him to be more

explicit, his look changed to one of admonition, and he held a finger to

his lips. "Not a word to a living soul, whoever it may be," he cautioned

her, "and be careful not to show any hope you may be so optimistic as to

feel," he added, smiling, "or you may ruin the whole thing. This is a

very dark and dangerous affair, and the less it is spoken about, even

between friends, the better."

 

"Mayn't I even tell Lady Ruth?" she asked. "She is very anxious, I know."

 

"Better not," he warned her. "It may be better for Sir David in the

long-run, if his friends think him guilty a few days longer. It will be

wisest if you let it appear that even you can hardly continue to cling

to the idea of his innocence. You can be trusted to act a part where

such great issues are involved, can you not? More may depend on it than

you think."

 

"I'll be silent as the grave," she cried. "As the grave," she repeated

more soberly, and turned away, reproaching herself silently, since in her

anxiety for David her sorrow for her father had been a moment forgotten.

 

When Gimblet came down again, clean and refreshed, he found no one but

his hostess, Lady Ruth Worsfold.

 

Lady Ruth's hair was white, in appearance she was short and squat, and

she had a curiously disconnected habit of conversation, but for all that

she was a person of great discernment, and uncommonly wide awake. She

sided staunchly with Juliet in her belief in David's innocence.

 

"Never," she said, "will I credit such a thing of the lad. You may say

what you like, Mr. Gimblet, you can prove till you're black in the

face that he murdered every soul in the house, it won't make any

difference to me."

 

"Who do you think did do it, Lady Ruth?" Gimblet asked.

 

"What do I know? An escaped lunatic, one of the keepers, the under

housemaid, anyone you like. What does it matter? It wasn't David, even

though his namesake did kill Goliath, and I always disliked the name,

having suffered from a Biblical one myself. I said to his mother when he

was born. 'For goodness' sake give the poor child a name he won't be

expected to live up to. Just fancy how his friends will hate to be known

as Jonathans, let alone thingamy's wife. You're laying up a scandal for

your son,' I told her, and if my words haven't come true it's more thanks

to him than to his parents. A nice pink and white baby he was, poor boy.

There's just one good side to this dreadful affair," she went on without

a pause, "and that is that the young lady with the dollars whom he was to

have married, and hated the sight of, has thrown him over. The first

least little breath of suspicion was enough for her, and the moment he

was downright accused she was off. And he's well rid of her, dollars and

all. An Englishman of his birth and looks doesn't need to go to Chicago

for a wife."

 

"Was Sir David in need of money?" asked Gimblet.

 

"He hasn't got a penny," said Lady Ruth. "Not a red cent, as that

terrible young woman put it. His father left everything to the

moneylenders, so to speak, and David couldn't bear to see his mother

poverty-stricken. He did it entirely for her sake--got engaged, I

mean--but I don't think he'd have been such a self-sacrificing son if

he'd met Miss Juliet Byrne a little earlier in the day."

 

"Indeed!" said Gimblet. "I thought Miss Byrne seemed very much worried

about his arrest."

 

"Worried? Poor child, she's the ghost of what she was a few days ago.

Half-drowned, too, when it happened, which made it worse for her."

 

"She must have had a narrow escape," Gimblet remarked. "What was the name

of the man who pulled her out of the river?"

 

"Andy Campbell. He had been stalking with Mark McConachan."

 

"Was young Lord Ashiel with him?"

 

"No, he was on ahead. He saw Juliet in the distance, just going up to the

waterfall, but he seems to have taken her for Miss Romaninov, which is

odd, because they aren't in the least like one another, one being tall

and the other short, in the first place, and one fair and the other dark

in the second. He can't have looked very carefully. However, he was very

positive about it till they both assured him that Julia Romaninov had

turned and gone home some time before she had reached the top pool. And I

certainly should have in her place. It doesn't amuse me scrambling over

rocks and scratching my legs in bramble bushes. The path Andy came by

goes along high above the water for half a mile. I hate walking on a

height myself. And for most of that distance the river is not in sight.

If he hadn't been thirsty and come down to the water-side for a drink at

a spring near by, he would never have seen Miss Byrne floating down the

stream, and she would have been in the loch pretty soon. It just shows

how much better it is to drink water than whisky."

 

"It was lucky he did," said Gimblet. "Does the path pass in sight of the

pool she fell into?"

 

"No. The banks are high there, and you can't see down into the pool

unless you go to the very edge of the precipice. I did it once, to look

at the waterfall, and I very nearly joined it. It's a nasty giddy place,

though why one should feel inclined to throw oneself down I can't

imagine; but it seems a natural instinct, and it's certainly easier to go

down than up."

 

"It appears almost miraculous that she wasn't drowned," said Gimblet.

"She certainly can have been in no fit state to bear the events that

followed."

 

"No, indeed. She has lost everything: father, family and lover at one

blow. You know Lord Ashiel said she was his daughter, and told her he'd

made a will leaving everything to her. For that matter the lawyers say he

didn't--not that I should ever believe anything a lawyer said. They

always mean something you wouldn't expect from their words. They do it, I

believe, to keep in practice for trials, you know, where they have to

make the witnesses say what they don't mean, poor things. And what I

shall have put into my mouth by them, if I'm called as a witness against

poor David, doesn't bear thinking of. But the Lord knows what Ashiel did

with the will, and, as I was saying, it can't be found."

 

"So I heard," said Gimblet "You talk of being called as a witness, Lady

Ruth. Do you know anything about the case? Where were you when the shot

was fired?"

 

"Oh no," she said, "I shouldn't have anything to tell, but I don't

suppose that will matter. They'll twist and turn my words till I find

myself saying I saw him do it with my own eyes. My poor dear husband,

when I first met him, was an eminent Q.C., as you may know, Mr. Gimblet,

so I have a very good idea what they're like. I refused him point-blank

when he proposed, but he proved to me in three minutes that I'd really

accepted him; and it was the same thing ever after. A wonderfully

brilliant man, though slightly trying at times, especially in church,

where he always snored so unnecessarily loud--or so it seemed to me. I

often think deafness has its compensations, though I'm sure I ought to be

thankful at my age that my hearing is still so acute. However, I didn't

hear the shot the other night, but the castle walls are thick even in

that detestable modern addition, and besides, Julia Romaninov has got

such a tremendously powerful voice,''

 

"Were you talking to her?"

 

"Oh dear no! I was playing patience, and she was singing, while Miss

Tarver murdered the accompaniment. We little thought at the time that

some one else was murdering poor Ashiel while we were sitting there in

peace. I must say that girl sings remarkably well, and it was a pity

there was no one who could play for her. Though it wasn't for want of

practice on Miss Tarver's part. The moment we were out of the

dining-room she would sit down at the piano, and they would neither of

them stop till bedtime."

 

"Had they both been playing and singing all that evening?"

 

"Yes, they hadn't ceased for a moment, and I found it prevented the Demon

from coming out, as I couldn't help counting in time with the music. It

was all right when it was one, two, three, but common time muddled it

dreadfully, though now I come to think of it, Julia was not actually in

the room when we heard the bad news. She'd gone upstairs to look for a

song or something. Of course there's no legal proof that Juliet really is

his child," Lady Ruth continued; "she admits that he was rather vague

about it, fancied a resemblance, in fact. Not that I or anyone else had

any notion he had been married as a young man, but that's a thing he

would be likely to be right about. I must say Mark has behaved extremely

well about it, even quixotically. He wanted her to take his inheritance,

and when she refused--and of course she couldn't decently do otherwise--

I'm blessed if he didn't ask her to marry him."

 

Gimblet looked up with more interest than he had yet shown.

 

"Do you mean to say he proposed that, merely as a way out of the

difficulty?"

 

"Well, more or less. I don't say he isn't attracted by the pretty face of

her, as much as his cousin was; privately I think he is, but I don't

really know. Anyhow, it certainly would be a very good solution; but it

was tactless of him to suggest it with David at the foot of the gallows,

poor boy."

 

"She didn't tell me that," murmured Gimblet.

 

At that moment Juliet came into the room, and they talked of other

things.

 

"I hear the post is gone," Gimblet said presently.

 

"I particularly wanted to catch it. I suppose there is no means of

posting a letter now?"

 

The last train had gone south by that time, however, so there was nothing

to be done till the next day.

 

He retired again to his room and gave himself up to his correspondence.

 

First a long letter to Macross in Glasgow, begging for the loan of prints

of the photographs taken by the police during their visit, together with

any details they might see fit to impart as to their observations and

conclusions. "I have arrived so late on the scene that you have left me

nothing to do," he wrote deceitfully. "But for the interest of the case I

should like to have a look at the photographs."

 

He did not expect to get much help from Macross.

 

Then he took from his pocket the pill-box in which he had stored the dust

so carefully collected in the gunroom. He wrapped it carefully in paper,

and addressed the small parcel to an expert analyst in Edinburgh. He

wrote one more letter, and then went downstairs again.

 

The dressing-bell sounded as he opened his door, and at the foot of the

staircase he met the two ladies on their way to dress.

 

"Dinner is at eight, Mr. Gimblet," Lady Ruth told him.

 

"I was just coming to find you," Gimblet answered her. "I want to ask if

you would mind my not coming down? I am subject to very bad headaches

after a long journey; and, as I want particularly to be up early

to-morrow, I think the best thing I can do is to go straight to bed and

sleep it off. It is poor sort of behaviour for a detective, I am aware,

but I hope you will forgive it."

 

"You must certainly go to bed if you feel inclined to," said Lady Ruth;

"but you will have some dinner in your room, will you not? They shall

bring you up the menu."

 

"No, really, thanks, I shall be better without anything. I know how to

treat these heads of mine by now, I assure you, and I won't have anything

to eat till to-morrow morning. The only thing I need is quiet and sleep.

If you will be so very kind as to give orders that I shall not be

disturbed...."

 

"Of course, of course," said his hostess, full of concern. "And you must

let me give you an excellent remedy for headaches. It was given me years

ago by dear old Sir Ronald Tompkins,