Chapter TWENTY: A Visit to the Hall

At this hour Scottie might have been out, but it happened that he was helping Stella prepare Kenneth Nelson’s newest picture for transportation, and he had not left the house all the evening, she told Andy. He went back to the Wilmot establishment. Mr. Downer was gone.

“I’ll take this money,” said Andy, gathering up the pocket-book. “And now, Wilmot, I would like you to tell me as much as you can remember about this marriage certificate.”

“Do you really think that was Abraham Selim?”

“I am certain that it was the man who killed your uncle,” said Andy shortly, “and he was pointing to us the identical weapon with which that murder was committed.”

Mr. Wilmot shivered.

“The certificate referred to a marriage between a man called John Severn and Hilda Masters, a parlourmaid. The marriage occurred about thirty years ago at St. Paul’s, Marylebone.”

Andy jotted down the particulars.

“Did your uncle’s name appear in any capacity?”

Wilmot shook his head.

“You know nobody named John Severn? You have not heard your uncle refer to him?”

“Never,” said Wilmot. “Now about this money, Macleod. I don’t want any trouble if I can avoid it. I really took it for safe keeping. How did you find out?”

“You know my methods, Watson,” said Andrew sarcastically. “This will look pretty ugly, but my advice to you is to keep as far away from Mr. Downer as you possibly can. He’ll have no mercy on you, and he will betray you with as little concern as he would betray Abraham Selim if he knew him.”

Something of the same idea was dawning upon the young man.

“He’s scared about that libel action,” he said. “I think to-morrow’s paper will be milder. Besides, the dramatic appearance of Selim is going to give him all the copy he wants.”

Andrew had thought the same thing.

He looked in on Stella before he went to the guest house. Scottie had gone to bed, like the virtuous man that he was.

“Everybody in Beverley is being sweet about the article,” said Stella. “I have never had so many people call upon me—the Sheppards, the Masons, and that quiet couple, the Gibbs. They are furious with Arthur Wilmot. What will the newspapers say to-morrow?” she asked.

“Very little,” said Andy. “Downer will lay himself out to do the burglary at Wilmot’s and the visit of the mysterious Abraham. He will also seize this opportunity of releasing you from all suspicion. People frequently threaten newspapers with libel actions in similar circumstances, but they very seldom get any farther than threats. But Downer knew he had overdone it, and I knew he was a little nervous on that score when I got his note this morning. It was very unlike Downer to write, because, really, he doesn’t care tuppence about my opinion of him, and he is not easily scared. He must have had some doubt as to the reliability of Wilmot.”

The fog which enveloped the Beverley Green murder was growing deep. It had grown so thick that Andrew, figuratively speaking, could not see a yard before him. The appearance of Abraham Selim brought him no nearer to the solution. Why had the man taken this risk to obtain an apparently worthless marriage certificate? Who was John Severn and who was the parlourmaid, Hilda Masters?

He waited at the guest house, from time to time receiving reports on the telephone from the meagre force of police which was searching the countryside for a stranger. In this search the police from the neighbouring villages were assisting. The main roads were patrolled and the cross-roads guarded. To work with his small force across open country was impossible. He must leave that until daylight.

At one o’clock in the morning he came out of the guest house to get a little air. His room was hot and stuffy and his head was aching.

No light showed in Beverley Green. Its people were sleeping. Not even in Stella’s upper room did so much as a glimmer appear.

He was joined by Dane, who had cycled up with the latest report.

“We’ve held up every motor-car between here and Cranford Corner. Do you think it is advisable to have a house to house search of Beverley Green?”

Andrew shook his head.

“I don’t see what result could come from that,” he said. “If Selim were a local inhabitant he can account for himself, and it is impossible to search every house thoroughly. It would be illegal without the necessary warrant. Perhaps——”

Andy was going on when the stillness of the night was broken by the sound of a shot. It was followed by a second and a third, an interval, and then a fourth. It came from the direction of the high lands beyond the village.

“They can’t be poachers,” said Dane.

“Poachers do not use revolvers,” snapped Andy, “and that those were pistol shots I’ll swear!”

And then the guest house telephone began to ring furiously. They heard it through the open door, before the weary Johnston hurried out to call him.

“Mr. Boyd Salter, sir, on the ’phone. He wants you urgently. That was his word—urgently!”

Andrew ran into the house, took up the receiver, and heard Boyd Salter’s voice.

“Is that you, Mr. Macleod? Did you hear the shots?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I fired ’em,” was the grim reply. “There has been a burglary at the Hall. Somebody tried to break in. He was making towards Spring Covert. Can you come?”

Andy got his car out of the guest house garage, and, with Dane at his side, flew along the main road, and after some delay succeeded in arousing the lodge-keeper.

Mr. Boyd Salter, looking very white and ill, and wearing a dressing-gown over his pyjamas, was waiting for them in his library.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Macleod,” he said.

“Did you see the man?” asked Andy quickly.

“Only the back of him. He must have been in the house half an hour before I heard him, and I shouldn’t have heard him then only the rascal had the audacity to come into my room.”

He showed them the window that had been forced. It was in a small drawing-room off the library.

“He has been in the library too,” explained Mr. Boyd Salter. “You see, those desks have been forced.”

The drawers had been broken open and pulled out, and half their contents were on the floor.

“Probably he had the impression that there was money here,” the Justice went on. “Of course I never keep anything of value in the library.”

“Did he go into any other rooms?”

“I have an idea he went into my son’s room—my son is away at Cambridge—but I am not sure.”

He led the way to the floor above, but here nothing had been disturbed, though the door of young Boyd Salter’s room was undoubtedly open.

“He may very well have mistaken this room for mine. Mine is exactly opposite,” said the owner of Beverley Hall. “I don’t know what woke me. It may have been the creaking of the door, though I have such a detestation of creaking doors that the hinges of all the doors at the Hall are thoroughly oiled at regular intervals.”

“He took nothing from here?” asked Andy.

“Nothing,” was the reply. “He hadn’t time. The moment I sat up in bed I heard the shuffle of his feet and he was gone. I caught a glimpse of him at the other end of the corridor as I came out of the room and ran downstairs shouting for Tilling. I caught another glimpse of him as he got through the window of the library, which was in darkness when I reached it. I always keep a pistol in my room, a Colt automatic, and I fired after him as he ran down the steps of the terrace and vanished into the darkness.”

“You didn’t hear him speak?”

Mr. Boyd Salter shook his head.

It was the work of an expert, Andy could see that at a glance. If he were not absolutely sure that Scottie was at that moment sleeping the sleep of the just, and was hardly likely at this juncture to go back to his old ways, he could have sworn to that individual being the midnight visitor.

Against this was the fact that Scottie had never been guilty of rifling a place unless he had exact information as to the quantity and position of the valuables it contained.

This burglar had had no fixed plan. Scottie would not have turned out papers from the desk, and would certainly not have bearded Mr. Boyd Salter in his room.

“This is the second burglary that has been committed to-night, sir,” said Andy, and told of Wilmot’s visitor.

“Abraham Selim,” said the other thoughtfully. “No, I won’t interfere with your theories, Mr. Macleod.”

“Is anything missing?”

The other shook his head.

“I hardly think so. There was nothing here worth taking except a few leases, and I should not think he would trouble about those.”

“What is that?”

Andy walked to the fireplace. It was empty, as all the other fireplaces had been empty, since the weather was unusually warm. At the bottom of the grate were the black ashes of burnt paper! The identical feature that had distinguished the murder of Darius Merrivan!

“Did you burn something?”

The squire shook his head.

“No,” he said. “Is the writing distinguishable? It sometimes is after it is burnt.”

Andrew knelt down and flashed his lamp upon the ashes.

“No, this has been broken up,” he said, and gently lifted a scrap larger than the others and carried it to the table.

“It looks like ‘R Y L,’” he said. “A curious combination of letters.”

“Orylbridge,” suggested Boyd Salter. “I have some property in that village.”

He picked up some papers from the floor.

“It would be impossible for me to check them to-night,” he said. “Perhaps you will come up in the morning, doctor.”

Andy waited to receive the report from two gamekeepers, who, hastily summoned from bed, had searched the covert, before he returned to the Green.

“This case is getting on my nerves, Dane,” he said as the car went down the hill to the lodge gates. “One thing is certain, that concealed somewhere in this valley is a murderer, call him Abraham Selim or whatever you wish. Obviously he is a local. There is no other possible explanation for the rapidity and sureness of his movements. He knows every inch of the ground, and he is looking for something. He killed Merrivan to find whatever it was he sought. He killed Sweeny because by some accident Sweeny happened to be in the orchard. He broke into Beverley Hall also for the purpose of search. But why did he in both cases burn the ‘something’ in the fireplace?”

“Where else could he burn it?” asked Inspector Dane intelligently. “In both cases the fireplace was near at hand.”

Andrew did not reply.

There was a third case of burning, he remembered, and it had been Stella who had employed the same method of disposing of something she wished destroyed.

It was half-past two, and the east was lighting palely when he said good-night to the inspector and turned into his lodgings. As he did so he glanced across to the Nelson house and stopped dead. Stella was up; her light showed through the blinds.

He waited for nearly an hour, waited until the world was dawn-grey, and then the light was extinguished.

Andrew sighed and went to bed.