The Hand in the Dark, Arthur J. Rees [learn to read activity book .TXT] 📗

his eyes to the fact that Hazel, on her own showing, fitted into the crime more completely than Nepcote. She had ample opportunities to slip into the room and murder the woman who had supplanted her. She had really strengthened the case against herself by the damaging admission that she had sought Mrs. Heredith's room in secret just before the crime was committed. Her explanation of the scream and the shot was so improbable as to sound incredible. It was not to be wondered that Scotland Yard preferred to believe that it was the apparition of the frantic girl, revolver in hand, which had caused her affrighted victim to utter one wild scream before the shot was fired which ended her life.

But Colwyn had never allowed himself to be swayed too much by circumstance. Appearances were not always a safe guide in the complicated tangle of human affairs. Things were forever happening which left experience wide-eyed with astonishment. The contradictions of human nature persisted in all human acts. In this moat-house mystery, the grimmest paradox of his brilliant career, Colwyn was determined not to accept the presumption of the facts until he had satisfied himself that no other interpretation was possible. His subtle mind had been challenged by a finger-post of doubt in the written evidence; a finger-post so faint as to be passed unnoticed by other eyes, but sufficiently warning to his clearer vision to cause him to pause midway in the broad track of circumstantial evidence and look around him for a concealed path.

It was the point he had mentioned to Caldew at his chambers after reading the copy of the coroner's depositions which Merrington had lent him. While perusing them he had been struck by a curious fact. The medical evidence stated that the cause of death was a small punctured wound not larger than a threepenny piece, but added the information that the hole in the gown of the dead woman was much larger, about the diameter of a half-crown. The Government pathologist had formed the opinion that the revolver must have been held very close to the body to account for the larger scorched hole. That inference was obvious, but Colwyn saw more in the two holes than that. It seemed to him that the live ring of flame caused by the close-range shot must have been extinguished by the murderer, or it would have continued to smoulder and expand in an ever-widening circle. And that thought led to another of much greater significance. The shot had been fired at close range to ensure accuracy of aim or deaden the sound of the report. But, whichever the murderer's intention, the second purpose had been achieved, intentionally or unintentionally. How had it happened, then, that the sound of the report had penetrated so loudly downstairs?

As Colwyn moved about the room, examining everything with his quick appraising eye, he noticed that the position of the bed had been changed since he last saw it. The head was a trifle askew, and nearer to the side of the wall than the foot. The difference was slight, but Colwyn could see a portion of the fireplace which had not been visible before. The bed stood almost in the centre of the room, the foot in line with the door, and the head about three or four feet from the chimney-piece. In noting this rather unusual position during his last visit, Colwyn had formed the conclusion that it had been chosen for the benefit of fresh air and light during the summer months, as the window, which looked over the terraced gardens, was nearer that end of the room.

Colwyn approached the head of the bed and bent down to examine the bedposts. A slight groove in the deep pile carpet showed clearly enough that the bed had been pushed back a few inches. The change in position was so trifling that it might have been attributed to the act of a servant in sweeping the room if a closer examination had not revealed the continuance of the groove under the bed. The inference was unmistakable: the bed, in the first instance, had been pushed much farther back on its castors, and then almost, but not quite, restored to its original position.

Had the bed been moved to gain access to the fireplace? He could see no reason for such a proceeding. It was too early in the autumn to need fires, and the room had not been occupied since the murder. In any case, the appearance of the grate showed that no fire had been lit. There was ample space to pass between the head of the bed and the fireplace, though perhaps not much room for movement. On his last visit Colwyn had looked into this space to test its possibilities of concealment. In the quickened interest of his new discovery he pushed the bed out of the way and examined it again.

The first thing that caught his eye was a scratch on the polished surface of the register grate. It looked to be of recent origin, and for that reason suggested to Colwyn's mind that the bed had been moved by somebody who wanted more room in front of the grate. For what purpose? He turned his attention to the grate itself in the hope of obtaining an answer to that question.

The grate was empty, and in the housewifely way a sheet of white paper had been laid on the bottom bars to catch occasional flakes of soot from the chimney. But there were no burnt papers or charred fragments to suggest that the grate had recently been used. Dissatisfied and perplexed, Colwyn was about to rise to his feet when it chanced that his eyes, glancing into a corner, lighted on something tiny and metallic in the crevice between the white paper and the side bars of the grate. Wondering what it was, he succeeded in getting it out with his finger and thumb. It was a percussion cap.

This discovery, strange as it was, seemed at first sight far enough removed from the circumstances of the murder, except so far as it brought the thought of lethal weapons to the imagination. But a weapon which required a percussion cap for its discharge had nothing to do with Violet Heredith's death. She had been killed by a bullet which fitted Nepcote's revolver, which was a pinfire weapon. The medical evidence had established that fact beyond the shadow of a doubt. Moreover, the percussion cap was unexploded, which seemed to make its presence in the grate even more difficult of explanation. It looked as though it had been dropped accidentally, but how came it to be there at all? The strangeness of the discovery was intensified by the knowledge that percussion caps and muzzle-loading weapons had become antiquated with the advent of the breech-loader. Who used such things nowadays?

By the prompting of that mysterious association of ideas which is called memory, Colwyn was reminded of his earlier visit to the gun-room downstairs, and Musard's statement about the famous pair of pistols in the brass-bound mahogany box, which "carried as true as a rifle up to fifty yards, but had a heavy recoil." They belonged to the period between breech-loaders and the ancient flint-locks, and were probably muzzle-loaders. With that sudden recollection, Colwyn also recalled that Musard had been unable to show him the pistols because the key of the case had been mislaid or lost.

This incident, insignificant as it had appeared at the time, seemed hardly to gain in importance when considered in conjunction with the discovery of the cap in the grate. Apart from the stimulus to memory the percussion cap had produced, there was no visible co-ordination between the two facts, because it was, apparently, quite certain that Mrs. Heredith had been shot by Nepcote's revolver, and by no other weapon. But the balance of probabilities in crime are sometimes turned by apparently irrelevant trifles which assume importance on investigation. Was it possible that the key of the pistol-case had been deliberately concealed because the box had something to hide which formed a connection between the pistols and the presence of the cap in the grate? That inference could only be tested by an examination of the case of pistols. The experiment was undoubtedly worth trying. Colwyn left the room and descended the stairs.

CHAPTER XXVII

The gun-room was dark and silent as a vault. In the deep recesses the armoured phantoms of dead and gone Herediths seemed to be watching the intruder with hidden eyes behind the bars of their tilting helmets and visored salades. The light of Colwyn's electric torch fell on the shell of a mighty warrior who stood with one steel gauntlet raised as though in readiness to defend the honour of his house. His initials, "P.H.," were engraved on his giant steel breast, and his steel heels flourished a pair of fearful spurs, with rowels like daggers. Standing by this giant was a tiny suit of armour, not more than three feet in height, which might have been worn by a child.

"A strange pair," murmured Colwyn, pausing a moment to glance at them. As he turned his light in their direction his eye was caught by an inscription cut in the stone above their heads, and he drew nearer and read that the large suit had been worn by the former Philip Heredith, "A True Knight of God." The smaller suit had been made for a dwarf attached to his house, who had followed his master through the Crusades, and fought gallantly by his side.

Colwyn turned away and flashed his light along the walls in search of the case of pistols. His torch glanced over the numerous trophies adorning the walls, lances, swords, daggers, steel head-pieces, bascinets, peaked morions—relics of a departed age of chivalry, when knights quarrelled prettily for ladies, and fighting was fair and open, before civilization had enriched warfare with the Christian attributes of gas-shells, liquid fire, and high explosives. Then the light fell on that which he was seeking—a dark oblong box, with brass corners, and a brass handle closing into the lid.

Colwyn lifted the case down from the embrasure in which it was placed, and carried it to the bagatelle table. A brief examination of the lock satisfied him that it was too complicated and strong to be picked or broken. It was curiously wrought in brass, of an intricate antique pattern which would have puzzled a modern locksmith. He turned the case over, and saw that the bottom had been mortised and screwed. The screws had been deeply countersunk, and were embedded in rust, but a few were loose with age. Colwyn unscrewed these loose ones with his pocket-knife, and then set about unloosening the others.

It was a tedious task, but Colwyn lightened it with the aid of a bottle of gun oil which he found in one of the presses. Some of the screws yielded immediately to that bland influence, and came out easily. Others remained fast in the intractable way of rusty screws, but Colwyn persevered, and by dint of oiling, coaxing, and unscrewing, finally had the satisfaction of seeing all the screws lying in a little greasy brown heap on the faded green cloth of the bagatelle table. The next thing was to lever off the bottom of the lid. That was not difficult, because the glue in the mortises had long since perished. Soon the bottom was lying on the table beside the screws, and the interior of the case revealed.

The pair of weapons which Colwyn lifted from the case were horse pistols of a period when countryfolk feared to ride abroad without some such protection against highwaymen. They were superior specimens of their type. They were beautifully made, rich in design and solid in form, with ebony stocks and chased silver mountings. The long barrels were damascened, and the carved handles terminated in flat steel butts which would have cracked the pate of any highwayman if the shot missed fire. As Colwyn anticipated, the pistols were muzzle-loaders. The cock, which laid over considerably, was in the curious form of a twisted snake. When the trigger was pulled the head of the snake fell on the nipple.

Colwyn examined them carefully. He first ascertained that they were unloaded by probing them with the ramrod which was attached to each by a steel hinge. Then he ran his finger round the inside of the muzzles to ascertain whether either pistol had been recently fired. One was clean, but from the muzzle of the other he withdrew a finger grimed with gunpowder. While he was doing this his other hand came in contact with something slightly uneven in the smooth metal surface of the butt. He turned the pistol over, and noticed a small inner circle in the flat steel. It was a small hinged lid, which hid a pocket in the handle. He raised the little lid with his finger-nail, and