The Stowmarket Mystery, Louis Tracy [best romance novels of all time .txt] 📗

can hardly tell you, auntie,” he said—both Helen and he adopted the pleasing fiction of a relationship that did not exist—“you must ask Mr. Brett.”

Thus appealed to, the barrister set forth, in a few explicit words, the object of their visit.

“I hope and believe you will succeed,” said Mrs. Eastham impulsively. “Providence has guided your steps here at this hour. You cannot imagine how miserable that man Capella makes me.”

“Why?” cried Hume, darting a look of surprise at Brett.

“Because he is simply pestering Nellie with his attentions. There! I must speak plainly. He has gone to extremes that can no longer be misinterpreted. In our small community, Mr. Brett,” she explained, “though we dearly love a little gossip, we are slow to believe that a man married to such a charming if somewhat unconventional woman as Margaret Hume-Frazer—I cannot train my tongue to call her Mrs. Capella—would deliberately neglect his wife and dare to demonstrate his unlawful affection for another woman, especially such a girl as Helen Layton.”

“How long has this been going on?” inquired Brett, for Hume was too furious to speak.

“For some months, but it is only a fortnight ago since Helen first complained of it to me I promptly told Mr. Capella that I could not receive him again at my house. He discovered that Nellie came here a good deal, and managed to call about the same time as she did. Then he found that she was interested in Japanese art, and as he is really clever in that respect—”

“Clever,” interrupted the barrister. “Do you mean that he understands lacquer work, Satsuma ware, painting or inlaying? Is he a connoisseur or a student?”

“It is all Greek to me!” exclaimed the old lady, “but unquestionably the bits of china and queer carvings he often brought here were very beautiful. Nellie did not like him personally, but she could not deny his knowledge and enthusiasm. Margaret, too, used to invite her to the Hall, for Miss Layton has great taste as an amateur gardener, Mr. Brett. But this friendship suddenly ceased. Mr. Capella became very strange and gloomy in his manner. At last Nellie told me that the wretched man had dared to utter words of love to her, hinting that his wife could not live long, and that he would come in for her fortune. Now, as my poor girl has been the most faithful soul that ever lived, never for an instant doubting that some day the cloud would lift from Davie, you may imagine what a shock this was to her.”

“Mrs. Eastham,” said Brett, suddenly switching the conversation away from the Italian’s fantasy, “you are well acquainted with all the circumstances connected with Sir Alan’s murder. Have you formed any theory about the crime, its motive, or its possible author?”

“God forgive me if I do any man an injury, but in these last few days I have had my suspicions,” she exclaimed.

“Tell me your reasons.”

“It arose out of a chance remark by Nellie. She was discussing with me her inexplicable antipathy to Mr. Capella, even during the time when they were outwardly good friends. She said that once he showed her a Japanese sword, a most wonderful piece of workmanship, with veins of silver and gold let into the handle and part of the blade. To the upper part of the scabbard was attached a knife—a small dagger—similar—”

“Yes, I understand. An implement like that used to kill Sir Alan Hume-Frazer.”

“Exactly. Nellie at first hardly realised its significance. Then she hastily told Capella to take it away, but not before she noticed that he seemed to understand the dreadful thing. It is fastened in its sheath by a hidden spring, and he knew exactly how to open it. Any person not accustomed to such weapons would endeavour to pull it out by main force.”

Brett did not press Mrs. Eastham to pursue her theory. It was plain that she regarded the Italian as a man who might conceivably be the murderer of his wife’s brother. This was enough for feminine logic.

Hume, too, shared the same belief, and had not scrupled to express it openly.

There were, it was true, reasons in plenty, why Capella should have committed this terrible deed. He was, presumably, affianced to Margaret at the time. Apparently her father’s will had contemplated the cutting down of her annual allowance. The young heir had, on the other hand, made up the deficit. But why did these artificial restrictions exist? Why were precautions taken by the father to diminish his daughter’s income? She had been extravagant. Both father and brother quarrelled with her on this point. Indeed, there was a slight family disturbance with reference to it during Sir Alan’s last visit to London. Was Capella mixed up with it?

At last there was a glimmering perception of motive for an otherwise fiendishly irrational act. Did it tend to incriminate the Italian?

A summons to luncheon dispelled the momentary gloom of their thoughts. Before the meal ended Miss Layton joined them.

Brett looked at his watch. “Fifty minutes!” he said.

Then they all laughed, except Mrs. Eastham, who marvelled at the coolness of the meeting between the girl and David. But the old lady was quick-witted.

“Have you met before?” she cried.

“Dearest,” said the girl, kissing her; “do you mean to say they have not told you what happened in the park?”

“That will require a special sitting,” said Brett gaily. “Meanwhile, I am going to the Hall. I suppose you do not care to accompany me, Hume?”

“I do not.”

The reply was so emphatic that it created further merriment.

“Well, tell me quickly what this new secret is,” exclaimed Mrs. Eastham, “because in five minutes I must have a long talk with my cook. She has to prepare pies and pastry sufficient to feed nearly a hundred school children next Monday, and it is a matter of much calculation.”

Brett took his leave.

“I knew that good old soul would be tactful,” he said to himself. “Now I wonder how Winter made such a colossal mistake as to imagine that Hume murdered his cousin. He was sure of the affections of a delightful girl; he could not succeed to the property; he has declined to take up the title. What reason could he have for committing such a crime?”

Then a man walked up the road—a man dressed like a farmer or grazier, rotund, strongly-built, cheerful-looking. He halted opposite Mrs. Eastham’s house, where the barrister still stood drawing on his gloves on the doorstep.

“Yes,” said Brett aloud, “you are an egregious ass, Winter.”

“Why, Mr. Brett?” asked the unabashed detective. “Isn’t the make-up good?”

“It is the make-up that always leads you astray. You never theorise above the level of the Police Gazette.”

Mr. Winter yielded to not unnatural annoyance. With habitual caution, he glanced around to assure himself that no other person was within earshot; then he said vehemently:

“I tell you, Mr. Brett, that swine killed Sir Alan Hume-Frazer.”

“You use strong language.”

“Not stronger than he deserves.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I heard he was in London, and watched him. I saw him go to your chambers and guessed what was up, so I came down here to see you and tell you what I know.”

“Out of pure good-nature?”

“You can believe it or not, Mr. Brett. It is the truth.”

“He has been tried and acquitted. He cannot be tried again. Does Scotland Yard—”

“I’m on my holidays.”

Brett laughed heartily.

“I see!” he cried. “A ’bus-driver’s holiday! For how long?”

“Fourteen days.”

“You are nothing if not professional. I suppose it was not your first offence, or they might have let you off with a fine.”

The detective enjoyed this departmental joke. He grinned broadly.

“Anyhow, Mr. Brett,” he said, “you and I have been engaged on too many smart bits of work for me to stand quietly by and let you be made a fool of.”

The barrister came nearer, and said, in a low tone:

“Winter, you have never been more mistaken in your life. Now, attend to my words. If you help me you will, in the first place, be well paid for your services. Secondly, you will be able to place your hand on the true murderer of Sir Alan Hume-Frazer, or I will score my first failure. Thirdly, Scotland Yard will give you another holiday, and I can secure you some shooting in Scotland. What say you?”

The detective looked thoughtful. Long experience had taught him not to argue with Brett when the latter was in earnest.

“I will do anything in my power,” he said, “but there is more in this business than perhaps you are aware of—more than ever transpired at the Assizes.”

“Quite so, and a good deal that has transpired since. Now. Winter, don’t argue, there’s a good fellow. Go and engage the landlord of the local inn in a discussion on crops. I am off to Beechcroft Hall. Mr. Hume and I will call for you on our way back to Stowmarket. In our private sitting-room at the hotel there I will explain everything.”

They parted. Brett was promptly admitted by Mrs. Crowe, and walked rapidly up the avenue.

Winter watched his retreating figure.

“He’s smart, I know he’s smart,” mused the detective. “But he doesn’t know everything about this affair. He doesn’t know, I’ll be bound, that David Hume-Frazer waited for his cousin that night outside the library. I didn’t know it—worse luck!—until after he was acquitted. And he doesn’t know that Miss Nellie Layton didn’t reach home until 1.30 a.m., though she left the ball at 12.15, and her house is, so to speak, a minute’s walk distant. And she was in a carriage. Oh, there’s more in this case than meets the eye! I can’t say which would please me most, to find out the real murderer, if Hume didn’t do it, or prove Mr. Brett to be in the wrong!”

Chapter VII Husband and Wife

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Brett did not hurry on his way to the Hall. Already things were in a whirl, and the confusion was so great that he was momentarily unable to map out a definite line of action.

The relations between Capella and his wife were evidently strained almost to breaking point, and it was this very fact which caused him the greatest perplexity.

They had been married little more than six months. They were an extraordinarily handsome couple, apparently well suited to each other by temperament and mutual sympathies, whilst their means were ample enough to permit them to live under any conditions they might choose, and gratify personal hobbies to the fullest extent.

What, then, could have happened to divide them so completely?

Surely not Capella’s new-born passion for Helen Layton. Not even a hot-blooded Southerner could be guilty of such deliberate rascality, such ineffable folly, during the first few months after his marriage to a beautiful and wealthy wife.

No, this hypothesis must be rejected. Margaret Capella had drifted apart from her husband almost as soon as they reached England on their return as man and wife. Capella, miserable and disillusioned, buried alive in a country place—for such must existence in Beechcroft mean to a man of his inclinations—had discovered a startling contrast between his passionate and moody spouse, and the bright, pleasant-mannered girl whose ill-fortune it was to create discord between the inmates of the Hall.

This theory did not wholly exonerate the Italian, but it explained a good deal. The barrister saw no cause as yet to suspect Capella of the young baronet’s murder. Were he guilty of that ghastly crime, his motive must have been to secure for himself the position he was now deliberately imperilling—all for a girl’s pretty face.

The explanation would not suffice. Brett had seen much that is hidden from public ken in the vagaries of criminals, but he had never yet met a man wholly bad, and at the same time in full possession of his senses.

To adopt the hasty judgment arrived at by Hume and Mrs. Eastham, Capella must be deemed capable of murdering his wife’s brother, of bringing about the death of his wife after securing