Chapter XVII

Wilson, for his part, had not spent an idle evening. After the extraordinarily inopportune meeting with Mr. Brandreth, he had decided to postpone his search of the tow-path, on which, in any case, there seemed to be too many miscellaneous footprints for accurate evidence to be obtainable. Machin, the tramp, was the person he really wanted to see; but Machin was not likely to be available, for a little while at any rate. At the moment, the most fruitful possibility appeared to be to test some of the conjectures he had formed at the bridge.

The first step was to find Colonel Lockwood, report his discoveries, and borrow the boots which Meston had been wearing at his death. The examination of the latter was annoyingly inconclusive. They were the right size, and fitted fairly closely, but not quite accurately, to the sketch which Wilson had made. Unlike the prints usually offered to the conventional sleuth, these had no nails, patches, or protectors obligingly fitted to the soles. The only thing was to try a borrowed boot on the spot.

Wilson then drew the scrap of green silk and the shred of tweed from his pocket, and asked the Colonel if he could identify either of them. The tweed produced no reaction; indeed, Wilson had hardly expected any. It might have come from almost anywhere, though it had definitely not come from William Meston’s suit, which was of the “respectable black” suggested by his calling. But when he saw the green silk, the good Colonel obviously suffered from a pang of recognition. He did not want to “put a name to it,” and endeavoured for some time to cloak himself in generalities; but Wilson, if patient, was ruthless, and in time forced the Colonel to disclose his practical certainty that it had come from an evening dress of Sylvia Meston’s.

Something, if not much, was gained at all events, if this were true. Some time within the last ten days, and probably near about the time at which her husband died, Sylvia Meston had spent a considerable time in the company of a man in that somewhat unattractive rendezvous up-stream. It now became of paramount importance to ascertain, if possible, who the man was. Making sure that, on this occasion at any rate, Brandreth was not hovering about his starting-point, Wilson set off to walk once more to the old bridge.

Within a couple of hours he was back again, and any one who knew him well would have been able to see that he was puzzled rather than satisfied. In the first place, Sylvia’s companion was definitely not her husband, unless the latter had on a different pair of boots. The prints resembled the borrowed boot, but they were not the same. Wilson made a note to investigate Meston’s belongings for a spare pair of boots; but realised that even if he found such a pair, and they fitted the marks, it would tell him very little about the crime. For obviously, if Meston had kept tryst wearing a different pair of boots, he must have returned alive to his hotel in order to change them.

It looked, on the whole, as though there had been another man present. But, if so, Wilson had no present means of identifying him--nor of saying whether the watcher by the knot-hole was or was not Meston. The tow-path, as he expected, told him nothing; there were trampled footprints of many kinds, but none visibly belonging either to Meston or to the two who had crossed the bridge. The only new information which he had secured was that there were certainly traces of not one, but two, cars on the little-used road which crossed the bridge, and that all the indications pointed to their having both been present on the same occasion--which might or might not be the night of the murder. The second car had come from the opposite direction, and had parked on the right bank, but on the far side of the road, which was why he had not seen its tracks at first, and had remained parked for quite as long as the other. From the parking place tracks of the man in size ten shoes led in various directions, as though he had been walking up and down; and eventually brought him to the place where they had first been observed, by the tracks of the second car. Wilson now thought that only one passenger--the woman--had been in the second car, that the man had joined her, and they had walked into the summerhouse together. Eventually both cars had gone away in the direction from which they had severally come. The woman had gone first, for the man’s footsteps were visible treading in the tracks of the woman’s car as it turned to go away; but, of course, it was quite uncertain by how long she had preceded him, and whether either or both had been there on the fatal night or at a different time. Nor could he find where either of the cars had gone after leaving the boathouse. Both tracks vanished completely in a little while--the woman’s at the cross-roads where the roads from Steeple Tollesbury and the Grange met it, and the other on a stretch of hard road by Sir Felix Lewis’s drive. Unless Mr. Jerry Machin had some information to give, Wilson very much feared that he had exhausted the clues at that spot.

As he returned to the hotel, thoughts of supper in his mind, he met Michael’s _bête noire_, Mr. Strake, at the tap-room entrance; and bethought himself that he had meant to have a word with him. Wilson had a short and harsh way with outsiders of his own profession, and Mr. Strake found himself speedily disclosing what information he had in his possession without the _quid pro quo_ which he had obviously intended to extract. There was not very much of it, but what there was, was significant enough. He was an “old friend” of Nicholas Hanborough’s, who had been “very kind” to him more than once--Wilson was able, without much difficulty, to guess the nature of the kindness. He had been employed by Mr. Hanborough, nominally to look into the firm’s position, but in reality to spy on William Meston; and he was under strict orders to bring all he got straight to Mr. Hanborough himself. But the results of his spying had been remarkably meagre. He, like Inspector Bille, had found that Meston had shown a singular fondness for the firm’s books during the past few weeks, and had once or twice caught him talking to racing men; but that was all. He had begun to wonder whether there was anything to be found out, and for what, exactly, he was being paid.

Then, when Meston disappeared from Colchester, he had pursued his investigations in that town; and had then discovered, as he had already begun to suspect, that whatever Meston had been doing, he could not have been doing it without the connivance of the senior partner--in fact, that his own employer had been equally guilty. Hanborough had kept his own traces pretty well covered; but after patient investigation, Strake had at last succeeded in nosing them out. At this point he confessed, with an entire absence of shame, he had been rather at a loss what to do, whether to go back to Hanborough and demand blackmail, or to find somebody else who would be willing to pay him more highly for information against both partners. Eventually he tossed for it, and decided to go to Mark Warden--who had promptly hunted him off with a flea in his ear. Now he was open to an offer of any sort.

But, as already stated, he was forced to part with his information without any compensation, Wilson dragging from him piece by piece all the evidence he had against Hanborough, which was certainly enough to put the man in a very dubious light. After he had found out all he could on this point, Wilson began to fish for anything which might connect Hanborough more definitely with Meston’s murder. Here, however, he drew blank. Strake professed absolute ignorance of any question propounded to him; yet there was a look in his eye which made Wilson absolutely certain that he knew something which bore directly on the events of that fatal night, and he was about to employ more drastic measures, when he saw Brandreth, complete with smile and walking-stick, approaching him down the street.

Annoyed as much at being caught talking to the inquiry agent as by the abrupt termination of his interview, Wilson went indoors, and over his solitary supper began tabulating the result of his investigations.

He had to confess that they were not very exciting. Of the five questions which he propounded to himself--how, when, where, by whom, and with what motive had Meston been killed--only the first could be answered with any degree of certainty. Meston had been hanged--but when? and where? The boathouse up-river seemed the most probable place, but it could not be said to be in any way proved. Nothing had been found by the boathouse, except the tree, which suggested violent death, and the marks on the tree might easily have been caused by climbing boys. When? Any time from 10.30 p.m. onwards. This was no help to an investigator. And as to the murderer, and the motive, Wilson felt himself as much at a loss as when he had talked to Michael in the morning. He could not even yet choose between his two motives--and as to the men----! The most likely person was the man who, if his conjectures were true, had talked to Sylvia in the boathouse, but who was he? If he turned out to be Nicholas Hanborough, the two lines of suspicion would blend admirably; but was he likely to? Well, that could perhaps be ascertained. He was approximately the right height, at all events.

Wilson sent for the landlord, and endeavoured to get some light on Sylvia’s relations with Hanborough, but without any useful result. If Hanborough admired the siren, he kept it closely to himself; and she had never shown any predilection for him. He was married, yes, to a quiet little woman who didn’t go about much. They had no children. Oh yes, Mr. Hanborough liked the girls as well as any other man, and was a very pleasant-spoken gentleman; but nothing special to nobody, as you might say.

“If you’ve got the key of Meston’s room, Wason,” Wilson closed the conversation, “I wish you’d let me borrow it. I’d like to have a look round.” He had Colonel Lockwood’s authorisation ready in his pocket, in case it proved necessary; but Wason seemed to think such innocent curiosity the most natural thing in the world, and without any protest departed to fetch the key. Wilson was still engaged on the subsequent investigation when Michael reappeared, full of sound and fury.

“What are you doing?” he asked, when he had resigned himself to the realisation that Wilson was not at present interested in gossip about the Grange.

“Trying to fix, if possible, the time when Meston left the inn to go to his death,” was the reply. “I started like this. The probability is that he left it before any of you were awake on Saturday morning. It isn’t certain; but if he’d gone away in broad daylight some one would have been almost sure to see him. Also, it seems probable that he was intending to leave about then.”

“Probable?” said Michael. “I thought it was certain. Wason told me he’d packed all his things ready.”

“Well, yes. I think we may take it he intended to leave. I found his portmanteau in his cupboard--very methodically packed, poor fellow, not as if he was merely going off for a night or two--and labelled in the handwriting you can see in the visitors’ book, ‘To be kept till called for.’”

“Well, then----?”

“But it’s not by any means certain that he intended to leave in the middle of the night. His trunk wasn’t locked. I thought at first he’d packed everything, and forgotten to lock it; but on examining the chambermaid, I found that when she came in the following morning she found his pyjamas, sponge, etc., lying about the room. She left them alone that day; but the next day collected them and put them in the trunk. So he hadn’t finished packing when he went.”

“Where was he going?” Michael wondered.

“I’ve no idea. And as nobody here knew he was going till he’d gone, we shan’t find out from that source.

“There’s another point, though. With his portmanteau I found his hat, stick, and overcoat. That is to say, when he went away, he went, apparently, without some obvious portions of his attire. Of course, he may have had a second hat. But, unless he had, it appears that either he went out in a hurry, intending to return, or that he departed for good--at least for some time--bareheaded and without a coat, which seems out of character, or----”

“Or that he went out and drowned himself,” said Michael. “He wouldn’t need a hat for that.”

“Yes. Suicide would fit the case admirably. But you and I know he didn’t commit suicide. So that won’t do.”

“When did the things turn up?”

“The day after his departure. The chambermaid found them, and shoved them into the cupboard.”

“Any other indications?”

“Nary a one. Either he, or the chambermaid, suffers from excessive tidiness. If more were like them, there would be more undiscovered crime in the world.”

Michael sighed. “Nothing seems to take us anywhere. He makes all preparations for suicide, it would seem, and then doesn’t commit it. Hanborough appears as a nice suspect for a murder--and he turns out to have been safely out of the way. Sylvia Meston meets a suspicious sounding man at the old ferry, and you don’t know who it is, or whether Meston was there at all. And one knows just nothing of anybody else. What are we to do?”

“Plod on,” Wilson said. “I’ve been trying to establish, if I can, the time at which he left the inn. The probability is, as I say, that it was between 10.30 when you saw him go up to bed, and, say, seven the next morning. It was well after 10.30, because his bed had been slept in.”

“Unless he tumbled it himself.”

“Unless he did, of course. We could probably have established that, if we’d been on the spot at the time. As it is, we shall have to leave it open. There’s another point, however. There’s a cottage in fairly full view, across the river, beyond the tow-path; and the occupier, a cowman called Billings, happened to be up, and has told everybody that he could see Meston’s light on till well past one o’clock. I haven’t questioned him yet; but I can do so in the morning, if it seems worth while. Unfortunately, even that doesn’t tell us how late he was here, for the chambermaid apparently forgot to fill his lamp the day before, and found it burnt out in the morning. And she can’t give me any idea how much oil there would have been in it the previous evening. There were candles in the room, both partly burnt. So whether he went out and left his lamp burning, or whether the oil failed while he was there, and he completed whatever he was doing by candlelight, I’m afraid we can only guess.”

“I should think we’re likely to have our fill of guessing, by the time we’ve finished,” Michael remarked. “What about Kershaw?”

He produced the result of his researches into the doctor’s career. Wilson shook his head. “There’s really nothing in that, you know. There may be a dozen reasons for the gap between 1910 and 1913; and, though this doesn’t on the face of it seem a good enough job for a man of his qualifications, there may be some war injury to account for it. From the look I had at him to-day, I shouldn’t put shell-shock out of the question.”

“Shell-shock needn’t make him hit that poor fellow on the head,” Michael said.

“_If_ he did. Oh, I quite agree his behaviour calls for some explanation. But I don’t think we shall get it to-night. Suppose we try bed, for a change?”