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

dying man had been able to pronounce, too, was, according to Miss

Byrne, 'steps' which might very well have been intended for steppes, and

have some connection with the enemies he dreaded.

 

"With these considerations running in my mind, I made my way to the

gun-room, not indeed with much expectation of its having anything to

tell me, but as part of the day's work of inspection, which must not be

shirked. I took down young Ashiel's rifle to examine. He had told me it

was of the same description as his cousin's, and I was not very

familiar with the make. It was owing to my wish to see for myself with

what kind of weapon the deed had been done that a very important clue

fell into my hands.

 

"As I put the rifle down on the bare deal table which forms the

principal piece of furniture in the gun-room, I saw a grain of something

dark, which looked like earth, fall off the butt end on to the boards

beneath. I picked up the rifle, and looked closely at the butt; it was

criss-crossed with small cuts, as they sometimes are, with the idea of

preventing them from slipping, and in the cuts some dust, or earth,

seemed, as I expected, to be adhering. I knocked the rifle upon the

table, and a little shower fell from it. Except for the first grain, it

might have been nothing but the ordinary dust of disuse, but I could not

help thinking it was of a darker hue than the accumulations of years

generally take upon themselves, and, further, I knew that the rifle had

lately been used for stalking. It was, moreover, specklessly clean in

every other part. I felt certain it had been leant upon the ground at no

distant date; and I remembered the mark I had not been able to account

for at the foot of the rose-bush, near the place where the plank had been

used and, as I was persuaded, the cowardly shot actually fired. If a gun

had been leant up against the large standard rose that grew there, it

would have left just such a mark upon the soft ground.

 

"All this, of course, was a mere surmise, and rather wild at that, but

the deer forests of Scotland are not muddy, whatever else they may be,

and I felt an unreasoning conviction that the rifle had not accumulated

dust while engaged upon its legitimate business on the mountain tops. The

peaty moorland soil on which the castle stood would hardly be the best

thing in the world for rose-trees, I imagined, and it seemed not too much

to hope that some other kind of earth might be artificially mingled with

I carefully collected the dust in a pill-box, and promised myself to

lose no time in obtaining the opinion of an expert analyst, as to

whether or no some trace of patent fertilizer, or other chemical, could

not be traced in it.

 

"It was now for the first time that suspicion of young Lord Ashiel began

to oust my theory of the Nihilist society's responsibility for the

murder. He had, as I remembered, struck me as taking his cousin's guilt

for granted with somewhat unnecessary alacrity. His rifle, I already

believed, perhaps in my turn with needless alacrity, had fired the fatal

bullet, and it seemed perfectly possible that it was his finger that

pressed upon the trigger. He was, I knew, in the billiard-room, and

alone, both before and after the murder was committed. It would have been

quite easy for him to fetch his rifle, place the gardener's plank in

position, fire his shot and return to the house, provided Miss Byrne did

not rush immediately from the room. He knew her to be a brave girl and

not likely to fly without making some attempt at offering assistance.

But, if she had rushed from the spot and met the murderer outside the

library door, it would be simple enough to convey the impression that he

had heard the shot, and that he was either dashing to their help, or

making for the garden in the attempt to catch the villain red handed. The

rifle was the only thing likely to provoke an awkward question, but he

could have dropped it in the dark and returned for it afterwards without

much fear of detection. As it happened, he thought it safer to risk

carrying it indoors, and hid it under the billiard-room sofa till he had

a chance to clean it and take it to the gun-room, as we now know.

 

"You can imagine the scene: Lord Ashiel falling forward upon the

writing-table under the light of the lamp; the scoundrel leaping from

his post upon the plank, but not so quickly that he did not see the

girl throw herself on her knees at the side of the fallen man. I can

fancy the frenzied haste with which McConachan thrust the plank into the

hedge and ran like a deer towards the door, which he had no doubt left

open. I imagine him, then, tiptoeing to the door of the library and

bending to listen, every nerve astretch. What he heard, no doubt

reassured him; it may have been the voice of the girl calling upon her

father, or it may have been the thud of her body falling upon the floor

when she fainted. Perhaps, even, he may have stayed outside long enough

to see her sink to the ground. Then he would steal back, shut the door

as gently as he had opened it, and not breathe again till he found

himself in the empty billiard-room, his tell-tale rifle still in his

hand. No doubt he wished he had left it in the hedge at that moment, for

he must have opened the billiard-room door with most lively

apprehensions. Supposing the shot had been heard, and the household was

rushing to the scene of the disaster? Supposing he opened the door to

find the room full of people demanding an explanation of himself and his

weapon? What explanation had he ready, I wonder? It must have taken all

his nerve to turn the handle of the door....

 

"But no one can deny the man his full share of courage and decision.

 

"I felt more and more sure that in some such manner the crime had been

gone about; and yet there were many complications, and more than once it

seemed as if my convictions had been too hastily formed. Later that same

afternoon I found, upon the sand of a little bay below the castle, marks

that told me as plainly as they told one of the keepers who joined me

there that a strange man had landed from a boat on the night of the

murder, and even, if our calculations were right, not far off the very

hour in which the deed was done. From the tracks left by his boots, which

were large and without nails and extraordinarily pointed for those of a

man, I felt sure that here one had landed who was no native of these

parts, and the theory of the unknown Russian seemed to take on new life

and vigour. The tracks, as we now know, were no doubt those of the member

of the Society of the Friends of Man who was living at Crianan, and who

hoped to have word with Julia Romaninov. It was no doubt he whom Sir

David saw lurking in the grounds, and it is natural to suppose that when

he perceived himself to be observed he retreated to his boat and made

off, abandoning his proposed meeting for that night.

 

"I was to be further bewildered before my first day of investigation

came to an end. Young Lord Ashiel had spent the day in searching for the

will; and, if my inward certainty that he himself would prove to be the

guilty man should turn out to be right, I could very well understand

that he was anxious to find it. For, from what his uncle had said to

Miss Byrne, it seemed possible that he had so worded his last will and

testament, that whoever succeeded to the great fortune he had to

bequeath, it might not be Mark McConachan. But the will was not to be

found, and there was no doubt to whose interest it was that it should

never be found; so that I felt pretty sure that, if the successor to the

title were once able to lay his hands on it, no one else would ever do

However, he hadn't found it yet, or the search would not be

continued with such unmistakable ardour.

 

"Now I had a fancy myself to have a look for the will. I took the last

words of the dead man to be an effort to indicate how I was to do so, and

I had no idea of prosecuting my search under the eye of his nephew. Young

Ashiel was to dine at the cottage here, with Lady Ruth; so I excused

myself under pretence of a headache from appearing at dinner, and hurried

back to the castle as soon as I could do so unobserved. I got in by a

window which I had purposely left open, and made my way to the library.

The words that Lord Ashiel, as he lay dying, had managed to stammer out

to his daughter, were only five. 'Gimblet--the clock--eleven--steps.' I

had decided to take the clock in the library as the starting-point of

investigation. He might, of course, have referred to any other clock, but

only one could be dealt with at a time, and a beginning must be made

somewhere. Moreover, I had noticed a curious feature about that

particular timepiece. It was clamped to the wall, which struck me as very

suggestive; and I thought it quite likely I should be able to discover

some kind of secret drawer concealed within, or behind, the tall black

lacquered case, where the will and other papers of which Lord Ashiel had

told me might be hidden. But in spite of my best efforts I came across

nothing of the kind.

 

"I then examined the floor of the room at spots on its surface which were

at a distance of about eleven steps from the clock, in the hope of

finding some opening between the oak boards; but all to no purpose. I

began to think that by some specially contrived mechanism the

hiding-place might only be discernible at eleven o'clock, and though the

idea seemed farfetched, I don't like to leave any possibility untested,

so I sat down to wait till the hour should strike.

 

"While I was waiting, I suddenly heard footsteps which appeared to come

from inside the wall of the room, or from below the floor. I concluded

instantly that there was a secret passage within the walls although I had

failed to find the entrance, so I left the library quickly and quietly,

and made my way to the garden, from which I was able to look back into

the room through the window. By the time I took up my post of observation

the person I had heard approaching had entered. To my surprise it was a

young lady about whom I seemed to recognize something vaguely familiar,

but whom I was not aware of ever having seen before. She was occupied in

examining the papers in Lord Ashiel's writing bureau, and after watching

her for some time, I concluded that she must be Julia Romaninov; partly

from certain foreign ways and gestures which she displayed, and partly

from her present employment, as I knew of no one else who was interested

in the papers of the dead man. I imagined that she knew of the possible

relationship which Lord Ashiel supposed might exist between himself and

her, and that she was searching for evidence of her birth. Whether she

was staying at the castle, which I was told all visitors had left, or

whether, like myself, she had made her way into it from outside, was a

question I could not then determine, though the next day I discovered

that she was stopping with Mrs. Clutsam at the fishing lodge, near by.

 

"The fact of her being still in the neighbourhood, the business I found

her engaged upon--an unusual one, to put it mildly, for a young girl--and

the hour, at which she had chosen to go about it, all gave me much food

for thought, and I felt sure she could tell me news of the stranger who

had landed in the bay and who wore such uncommonly pointed boots. When I

recognized in her, on the following day, a young person who had, a few

weeks previously, made me the victim of a barefaced and audacious

robbery, I could no longer doubt that she and the unknown boatman were