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

the new peer,

which showed me that things looked blacker against Sir David Southern

than I had expected, I was far from convinced that he was guilty, though

I was obliged to admit that there was some ground for the conclusion come

to by the police.

 

"But what was the evidence against him? Sir David was known to have

quarrelled with his uncle; he had even been heard to say he had a good

mind to shoot him. But that was more than twenty-four hours previous to

the crime, and the words were uttered in a moment of anger, when he

probably said the first thing that came into his head. Was he likely to

have hugged his rage in silence for the hours that followed, and then to

have walked out into the garden and shot his uncle in cold blood and

without further warning? It did not appear to me probable, but then I did

not know the young man.

 

"He was not to be found when the deed was discovered, and a hunt

instituted for the murderer. Well, he had an answer to that which fitted

in with my own theory. He said he saw some one hanging about the grounds,

and went to look for him. But it was said that the night was so dark as

to make it improbable that anyone should have been seen, even if there

had been anyone to see. That cut both ways, to my mind. For it would

account for the intruder making his escape undiscovered.

 

"Then there was the matter of the rifle, which he had told Miss Byrne he

had cleaned that evening, in which case it had certainly been fired since

then. He owned that he had locked it up and that the key never left his

possession afterwards, but now denied that he had told the young lady

that he had cleaned it. I asked young Lord Ashiel if he could put any

possible interpretation on these facts except the one accepted by the

police, and he replied that he could not. That, for the first time, made

me wonder if he were really anxious to believe his cousin innocent. For I

could put quite different interpretations on them myself.

 

"In the first place, though it was possible that Sir David lied in

making his second statement to the effect that he had not said he had

cleaned his rifle, it was equally possible that the first statement that

he _had_ cleaned it was not strictly accurate. For some reason, which he

did not care to divulge, he might have told Miss Byrne he had been

cleaning his gun when he had been really doing something entirely

different. But had he told her he had cleaned it? His words, as repeated

by her to me, were, 'I went in there to clean my rifle,' but not, 'I have

been cleaning my rifle,' which would be another thing altogether, he

probably had not yet begun cleaning it when he heard Miss Byrne coming

and went out to speak to her; it is possible some feeling akin to shyness

might make him reluctant to confess this afterwards in public. Indeed I

now feel quite sure that this is the explanation of the matter. Later on,

when I questioned her again, she did not appear certain which of the two

forms of words he had used; but there was, at all events, a considerable

doubt. There were other possibilities also. Some one might possess a

duplicate key to the gun-cabinet. It seemed to me impossible that none of

these considerations should have occurred to young Ashiel, if he were

really reluctant to believe in Sir David's guilt. But at the same time I

remembered the almost incredible lack of reasoning powers shown by most

members of the public where a deed of violence has been committed, and

knowing that there is nothing so improbable that it will not find a host

of ready believers, I did not attach much importance to the circumstance

until later.

 

"Still on the whole, after talking to young Lord Ashiel, I felt more

disposed to believe that there might be some truth in the accusation

that had been made than I had previously thought likely. But on that

point I reserved my opinion till I should have had an opportunity of

examining the scene of the tragedy for myself. So I prevailed upon the

new owner of the castle to leave me alone--which he was the more ready to

do since he had urgent need to be first in examining some papers of his

uncle's which were in another room--and proceeded to make a cast round

the garden from which the shot had been fired, in the hope of lighting

upon some trifle which had escaped the notice of Macross.

 

"It was when I came upon the footprints in the rose-bed which had done so

much to prove the guilt of Sir David Southern in the eyes of his

accusers, that I began to be certain of his innocence; and a very little

examination convinced me absolutely that whoever had shot Lord Ashiel it

was not his youngest nephew. For the tracks on the flower-bed left no

room for doubt.

 

"It is true they corresponded exactly with the shooting-boots Sir David

had been wearing on the day the crime was committed. I had provided

myself with a pair that I was assured was exactly like those particular

boots which fitted the tracks and which the police had taken away with

them, and I found that there was indeed no difference, except for the

matter of an extra nail or two on the soles. There was no doubt that Sir

David's boots had made those impressions, but to my mind there was

equally no doubt that Sir David had not been in them when they made them.

For the track which was so plainly distinguishable on the soft mould of

the flower-bed had certain peculiarities which I could hardly overlook.

 

"There was first a row of footmarks leading from the lawn to the middle

of the bed; then more marks as if the wearer of the boots had moved from

one position to another hard by; and finally, a track leading back again

to the mossy lawn at the side. Now all this was well enough till it came

to the last row of footsteps, those which led off the bed, and which had

presumably been taken after the fatal shot was fired. But was it

conceivable that a man who had that moment committed a cold-blooded

murder should leave the scene of his crime with the same slow, deliberate

footsteps with which he had approached it? Surely not.

 

"And yet this is what the wearer of the boots had done. The imprints, as

they advanced towards the lawn, were deep and well defined from toe to

heel. Not only that, but they were, if anything, closer together than

those which preceded them. Now a man, running, leaves a deeper impression

of his toe than he does of his heel, and his steps are much farther apart

in proportion to his increase in speed. I, myself, ran from the middle of

the bed, to the lawn, alongside of the footmarks of the soi-disant

murderer, and though I am a short man, while Sir David's legs are

reported long, I left only two footprints to his five. To me it was as

certain as if I had seen it happen that the wearer of the boots trampled

his way off the rose-bed as slowly as he had trampled on. Those

footprints had been made by some one who was determined they should be

seen, not by some one whose only thought was to get away from the place;

not, in short, by a man who had that moment fired a murderous shot

through the darkness. The tracks had undoubtedly been made as a blind and

with the intention of diverting suspicion to the wrong man probably after

the deed itself was done.

 

"I was satisfied, then, that the shot had not been fired from this

particular part of the rose-bed, and I proceeded to search for other

footprints farther down the bed. I did not feel much hope of being

successful, since, if our man had had the forethought to leave so many

traces of some one else's presence, it was unlikely he would have

neglected to ensure that his own should be absent. And as I expected, I

found none.

 

"But at the end of the garden, where it is bounded by the holly hedge, I

came across something which puzzled me. There were two narrow depressions

on the flower-bed, about an inch wide by less than a foot long. They were

parallel to each other, and at right angles to the hedge, and separated

by a distance of six or seven feet. Near one, which was almost in the

middle of the bed, was another mark which I could not understand. It was

only a few inches long and, in shape, a narrow oval. I could not at first

imagine what any of them represented, and it was only quite suddenly, as

I was giving it up and going away, that the truth flashed across my mind.

I had been looking regretfully at the track I myself had left by the side

of the hedge on my way to and from the middle of the bed.

 

"'What I want,' I said to myself, 'is one of those planks raised off

the ground by two little supports, one at each end, that gardeners use

to avoid stepping on the beds when they are going through the process

of bedding out,' And even as I said it, I realized that the same idea

had occurred to some one else, and that the marks I had been examining

might have been made by just such a contrivance as the one I was

thinking of. A short search showed me the plank itself, kept in a

tool-house conveniently near the spot, and, with a rake taken from the

same place, I seized the opportunity of raking out my own footmarks

from the rose-bed.

 

"And now who could this be who had so carefully manufactured a false

scent, and so cleverly avoided being himself suspected? My previous

theory, that some envoy of the Nihilists had been lurking in the

neighbourhood, seemed not to meet the new conditions. For how could a

mere stranger have gained possession of the misleading boots, or how

returned them to their proper place? And how, for that matter, could a

stranger have obtained the use of Sir David's rifle, if his rifle had

indeed been used?

 

"That brought me to consider again whether after all there was any proof

that his rifle had been used by anyone. Supposing, as I saw no reason to

doubt, he spoke the truth when he said that Miss Byrne had misunderstood

him and that he had not cleaned the weapon since coming in from stalking,

was I driven back on the theory that some one possessed a duplicate key

to the case where the guns were kept? Not in the least. The shot might

have been fired from a rifle that had never, at any time, been within the

walls of the castle. Certainly, the bullet fitted Sir David's Mannlicher

rifle, but that, as young Lord Ashiel said himself, was equally true of

his own rifle, or probably of a dozen others in the neighbouring forests,

since a sporting Mannlicher is a weapon in common use in the Highlands.

 

"The shot, then, might well have been fired by my hypothetical Russian as

far as the rifle was concerned; but he would have found it difficult to

borrow Sir David's boots, and it seemed unlikely that any stranger would

not only have dared to do so, but afterwards have had the audacity to

return them. No, on the whole the footmarks seemed to clear the

character of the Russian nation from any reasonable suspicion of being

directly concerned in the crime.

 

"And yet, in spite of reason, I could not help feeling that the Society

of the Friends of Man must be at the bottom of the whole thing in some

way I had not yet fathomed. I made every inquiry as to whether any

foreigner had visited the castle or been seen in the neighbourhood, but

the only strangers among the visitors had been Miss Julia Romaninov and

Miss Juliet Byrne's French maid, both of whose alibis appeared so far

unimpeachable. I had it on Lady Ruth's authority that Miss Romaninov had

been in the drawing-room with the other ladies at the time of the murder,

and all the servants were at supper in the servants' hall. Otherwise I

should have been inclined to look on Julia Romaninov with a suspicious

eye, as being the only Russian I knew to be on the spot. The last word

the