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

that famous specialist, you know,

who always ordered every one to roll on the floor after meals, and I

invariably keep a bottle by me."

 

And she hurried off to fetch it.

 

Gimblet accepted it gratefully, and as he passed a hand across his aching

brow said he felt sure it would do him good.

 

Once again within his own room, however, the detective's headache seemed

to have miraculously vanished, and he showed himself in no hurry to go to

bed. Instead, having locked the door and drawn down the blind, he sat

down in an arm-chair and gave himself up to reflection. Mentally he

rehearsed the facts of the case as far as they were known to him, and was

obliged to admit that he found several of them very puzzling.

 

There were other problems, too, not directly connected with the murder,

of which he could not at present make head or tail. For instance, where

was he to find the documents which he knew it was Lord Ashiel's wish he

should take charge of. He had promised that he would do so, and the

recollection of his failure to guard the first thing the dead peer had

entrusted him with made him the more determined that he would carry out

the remainder of his promise. But how was he to begin his search? He had

so little to go on, and he dared not hint to anyone what he wished to

find. Yet, if he delayed, it was possible that young Ashiel would come

across the papers in his hunt for his uncle's will, and Gimblet felt

there was danger in their falling into the hands of anyone but himself.

 

He took out his notebook and studied the dying words of his unfortunate

client.

 

"Gimblet--the clock--eleven--steps." Or was it steppes?

 

Considering that he had lived in dread of a blow which should descend on

him out of Russia, the last seemed the more likely.

 

There was the strange circumstance of the body's being found by the

police in a position differing from that described by those who first saw

Young Ashiel, Juliet and the butler all agreed that it had fallen

forward on to the blotting-book in the middle of the table; but Mark had

told him that on his return with the police the attitude had been

changed. Had he been mistaken? Macross's photographs would show. But if

not, and the murdered man had really shifted his position, what did it

prove? That they had been wrong in thinking him dead? The doctor's

evidence was that the wound he had received must have been instantly

fatal, or almost instantly. Then some one must have moved the body, and

who but David knew where the key of the room had been put away? But why

should David have moved him?

 

Then there was the letter which had come two days after the murder; the

letter written in French and posted in Paris, but probably not written by

a Frenchman, and so timed as to reach its destination too late. Was it

intentionally delayed, or would Lord Ashiel's death come as an entire

surprise to the writer? It certainly would, if the police were right, and

Sir David Southern guilty of his uncle's death.

 

But was he guilty? Gimblet thought not.

 

These and other questions occupied the detective's mind so completely

that half an hour passed like a flash, and it was only when the noise of

the dinner-bell broke in upon his meditations that he roused himself and

pulled out his watch. Then he sat upright, and listened.

 

His room was above the drawing-room, and he could hear Lady Ruth's clear,

rather high voice mingling with the deep tones of a man's, in a confused,

murmuring duet which after a few moments died away and was followed by

the distant sound of a closing door.

 

It was not difficult to deduce from these sounds that Lord Ashiel had

arrived, and that the little party of three had gone in to dinner.

 

It was half an hour more before Gimblet rose, and walked quietly over to

the window. He drew the blind cautiously aside and looked out. Already

the days were growing shorter, and the little house, embowered in trees,

and shut in by a tall hill from the western sky, was nearly completely

engulfed in darkness. Below him, on the right, he could just discern the

top of the porch, and beyond it a faint glow of light rose from the

window of the dining-room.

 

It did not need a very remarkable degree of activity to clamber from the

window to the porch, and so down to the ground. To Gimblet it was as easy

as going downstairs. In two minutes he was stealing away under the trees

in the direction of Inverashiel Castle.

 

"The worst of this Highland air," he said to himself as he walked along,

"is that it makes one so fearfully hungry, even here on the West Coast. I

could have done very nicely with my dinner. But such is life. And it's

lucky I am not entirely without provisions."

 

So saying, he took a box of chocolates from his pocket and began to

demolish the contents.

CHAPTER XIII

 

By the time he reached the castle, the night was dark indeed. He

approached it by the path along the burn, and felt his way cautiously up

the steep zigzags of the hill, and past the servants' quarters, where a

dog barked and gave him an uneasy minute till he found that it was tied

up, and that the noise which issued from a brilliantly lighted

window--which he guessed to be the servants' hall--did not cease or

diminish on account of it.

 

There were no other lights to be seen, and he edged his way round to the

front of the house, which loomed very black and mysterious against the

liquid darkness of the moonless sky. A little wind had risen, and the

sound of a million leaves rustling gently on the trees of the woods

around was added to the distant murmur of the burn, so that the night

seemed full of noises, and every bush alive and watching.

 

Keeping on the grass, and with every precaution of silence, Gimblet crept

along till he thought he was outside the drawing-room.

 

It did not take him long to find the window he had left unlatched that

afternoon, but it was an anxious moment till he made sure that no one had

noticed it and that it was yet unfastened. If a careful housemaid had

discovered it and shut it, he would have to begin housebreaking in

earnest. Luckily it opened easily at his touch, and he lost no time in

climbing in, though it was rather a tight squeeze through the narrow

imitation Gothic mullions, and he was thankful there were no bars as in

the library.

 

He had more than once during his career found himself obliged to enter

other people's houses in this unceremonious, not to say burglarious

fashion. But it was always an exciting experience; and his heart beat a

trifle faster than usual as he stood motionless by the window, straining

his ears for the sound of any movement on the part of the household.

Nothing stirred, however, and by the help of an occasional gleam from his

pocket electric torch Gimblet made his way to the door, and through the

deserted house to the distant passage leading to the old tower. Once

inside the library he breathed more freely, and when, after holding his

breath for some minutes, he had made certain that the absolute silence of

the place continued unbroken by any suspicion of noise, he felt safer

still. His first act was to draw the curtains, and to fasten them

together in the middle with a large safety-pin he had brought for the

purpose. Then, secure from observation, he switched on his torch, placed

it on the table with its back to the window, and set about what he had

come to do.

 

As he had not failed to observe, earlier in the day, the book-lined walls

of the library were broken, opposite the window, by a panelled alcove

where a small table stood, beyond which, against the wall, was a very

large and tall grandfather's clock of black and gold lacquer, in

imitation of the Chinese designs so popular in the eighteenth century.

 

Among Lord Ashiel's last words, "The clock" had been uttered immediately

after the detective's own name. No doubt they formed part of a message he

wished to convey; and, though they might refer to any clock in or out of

the house, it seemed to Gimblet worth while to begin his investigations

with the one nearest at hand, and he turned his attention to it without

loss of time.

 

Gimblet was a connoisseur of the antique, and a few minutes' examination

proved to him that this was a genuine old clock, untouched by the

restorer's hand, and in an excellent state of preservation. The works

appeared all right as far as he could make out, but through the narrow

half-moon of glass, so often inserted in the cases of old clocks for the

purpose of displaying the pendulum, that article was not to be seen, and

he found that it was missing from inside the case, as were also the

weights, so that it was impossible to set it going. There was one odd

thing about it, which the detective had already remarked: it was firmly

fixed to the wall by large screws, and he thought that there must be some

opening through the back into a receptacle contrived in the panelling

behind it. The case was so large that he was able to get inside it, and

examine inch by inch the wood of the interior, which was lacquered a

plain black.

 

But his most careful tappings and testings could discover no hidden

spring, nor, even by the help of the electric torch--which he passed all

over the smooth surfaces of the walls--could he discern the slightest

join or crack. Could there be a hiding place up among the wheels of the

motionless works? His utmost endeavours could discover none. The clock

was fully eight feet high, but with the help of a stool, which he put

inside on the floor of the case, he was able to explore even the topmost

corners. All to no purpose.

 

Presently he abandoned that field of research, replaced the stool whence

he had taken it, and gave his attention to the surrounding walls. He

examined each panel with the most painstaking care, but could find

nothing. There was no sign of secret drawer or cupboard anywhere.

 

It was disappointing, and he drew back, baffled for the moment

 

"The clock--eleven--steps."

 

What was the connection between those broken words?

 

If eleven o'clock had anything to do with the answer to the riddle, it

could not refer to this particular clock, which pointed unwaveringly to

thirteen minutes past four. Could it be possible that at eleven there

appeared some change in its countenance? Was it controlled by some

invisible mechanism? Well, if so, he would witness the transformation,

but such a solution did not seem likely. Was there no other meaning

applicable to the words? He would try the last ones and assume that

eleven steps from somewhere, the clock, probably, would bring him to the

hiding-place where the precious papers had been deposited.

 

Placing his heel against the bottom of the black-and-gold case, he walked

forward for eleven paces, which brought him right into the bow of the

window. Here he bent down, and, with the torch in one hand, and a small

magnifying lens that he was never without in the other, searched the

floor eagerly for some join in the boards, which should denote the edge

of a trap-door or an opening of some sort.

 

He could find none.

 

Again and again he tried, till at last he had examined the whole flooring

of the embrasure of the window.

 

No other part of the room was wide enough to allow him to take eleven

steps, and he reluctantly came to the conclusion that he must be on the

wrong tack.

 

There seemed no more to do