This etext was transcribed by Les Bowler.

THE
CLEVEDON
: : CASE : :

BY
NANCY & JOHN
OAKLEY

PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

Printed in Great Britain by Wyman & Sons Ltd., London, Reading and Fakenham.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
A MIDNIGHT VISITOR

I became mixed up with the Clevedon case—the Cartordale Mystery, as it has been called—in curious fashion. True, it was to some extent in my line of business, though I do not actually earn my living by straightening out tangles. With me it is all a matter of “copy.”

You may or may not have read my various books—there are eight of them now—on criminology. Their preparation has led me into all sorts of queer by-ways and has given me a curiously clear and analytical insight into the mind of the criminal. I have solved many mysteries—you will forgive the apparent boastfulness, but I have no useful Watson to detail my exploits—but I stop there, with solving them, I mean. When I know the answer, I hand the whole matter over to the police. “There is your man (or woman)—take him,” I say. And sometimes they do take him—and hang him. But occasionally they reply, “But we can’t take him—we couldn’t prove it against him.” That, however, is no business of mine. I am a scientist, not a police official, and have nothing to do with the foolery of their law courts or the flummery of what they call their rules of evidence.

I have supplied the answer to the conundrum and that suffices me. The mystery and its solution go into my notebooks, to be used eventually for my own purpose, it may be to illustrate a theory, or perhaps to demonstrate a scientific fact. I have no desire to pose and no intention of posing as a worker of miracles.

There is nothing marvellous about my methods nor wonderful in the results. I do but proceed from fact to fact, as you will see in this narrative, wherein I have set forth exactly what happened, however foolish it may make me look. The reader will accompany me step by step in my investigation of the Clevedon mystery and will learn precisely how the solution, which so bewildered and astonished the little group in Cartordale, came to me. You will see me groping in the dark, then you will discover, as I did, a pin-point of light which grows wider and wider until the whole story stands revealed. And if you guess the solution before I did, that will show that you are a cleverer detective than I am, which may very easily be.

I did not, by the way, go to Cartordale for the purpose of investigating this particular mystery. I became involved in it almost involuntarily. It was a queerly tangled skein enough, and that of itself would have been sufficient fascination to drag me into it, though I was deep in it long before any intention or even desire to solve the puzzle manifested itself. As a rule I carefully select my cases. Some appeal to me, others do not. But in this instance I was not entirely a free agent. I was in it before I quite knew where I was going. That being so, it may be interesting to explain how I came to be at Cartordale at all.

My Aunt Emily, to put it briefly, left me the house and the money that took me into the wilds of Peakshire. I had never met her in the flesh, and she, as far as I know, had never set eyes on me. In point of fact, she never forgave my father for taking to himself a second wife after my mother died. But that is family history and dry stuff. Aunt Emily made amends for past neglect by her will. She left me about eight hundred a year from investments, and the house at Cartordale, both very useful, though I was not exactly a poor man. My books have provided me with a fairly steady income for some years.

Stone Hollow, the house I had inherited, was a square, rather gloomy-looking building—outwardly sombre, at all events—situated at the head of Cartordale, a wild and romantic valley in the heart of Peakshire, some sixteen miles from the large industrial city of Midlington. The name, Stone Hollow, had a comparatively recent derivation, arising from the fact that the house was built on the site of, and largely on the profits from, a now disused stone quarry.

The house itself stood on a sort of broad shelf, and behind it a tall hill sprang almost perpendicularly upwards, still showing on its face the marks and scars of former quarrying operations, though Nature was already busy trying to hide the evidences of man’s vandalism behind a cover of green and brown. Before the house, the ground sloped gently downwards towards the Dale, while to the left was a stretch of heather clad moorland lying between Stone Hollow and White Towers, the residence of Sir Philip Clevedon.

It sounds rather well in description, but I will frankly confess that after a very few days at Cartordale I was bored. Though I had travelled widely, I had never actually lived out of London and was always very quickly eager to be back there. At first, I had done my best to persuade myself that a country life was really the ideal and that it would provide me with quiet and isolation that would be useful for literary work. But I soon arrived at the limit of my resources in self-deception. Which brings me to the night of February 23rd.

I was lolling on the couch in the room I had made my study, pretending to work and succeeding very badly.

“Nothing ever happens in a place like this,” I said aloud, with a yawn. “I should become a hopeless vegetable if I lived here. I couldn’t even write another book. There isn’t a chapter in the whole blessed place. Neither robbery nor murder ever happens. The folk wouldn’t know the meaning of the words without looking them up in a dictionary. Honesty is the badge of all their tribe, and honesty, if commendable, is dull.”

I took up a batch of manuscript from the desk at my elbow and began to read in rather desultory fashion, making a correction here and there with a pencil.

“Another delusion shattered,” I murmured. “They say one can write so much better in the quiet of the country than amid the bustle and distractions of town. That is bunkum. This one can’t, anyway. I thought I would have made a good start with this book, but I have done next to nothing, and what there is of it is rotten. I could do more work in a week in London than I shall do in three months of this. I think I’ll be getting back next week.”

But I was wrong in saying that nothing ever happened in Cartordale. Adventure was even at that moment coming towards me with very hurried footsteps.

The time—it is essential always to be precise in details—was fifty-three minutes past eleven, and the date February 23rd.

It came, the beginning of the story, with a quick, almost peremptory tapping on the window-pane and then the bottom sash was slowly pushed up. I turned to the desk and took a revolver from one of the small drawers, then strode across the room and raised the blind with a quick rattle, half expecting that my visitor would reveal himself in the shape of a burglar. What I saw brought even me to a standstill, little susceptible as I am to surprises of any sort.

My visitor was not a burglar—at least, not a male of that species—but a girl, who looked young enough to be in her teens, though she may have been a year or two outside them, and a great deal too pretty to be wandering about alone at that time of night. She was wearing a long, sleeveless cloak and a grey, woollen cap, from beneath which part of her hair had escaped and was blowing about her face in little wisps of bronze-gold cloud.

“Let me in,” she whispered. “Please—I have hurt myself and I am afraid to go on.”

I stretched out my hands and, placing them beneath her arms, lifted her over the low window-sill and into the room.

“How strong you are,” she murmured.

But even as she said that, the something that had kept her up gave way and she lay a limp, dead weight in my clasp. I carried her to the couch, but as I placed her down and began to unfasten the long, grey cloak, I noticed that the sleeve of her white blouse was stained with blood. That was evidently the hurt to which she had referred; and I began to wonder whether I had not better summon my housekeeper. It looked essentially a case for feminine aid. The girl, however, was already recovering.

“No, come here,” she said, as I began to move towards the door.

I returned to her side and gently lifted her arm.

“Yes, you have hurt yourself,” I remarked. “See—your arm, isn’t it?—there is blood—”

“Yes, it’s my arm,” she replied, lifting her cloak and showing a ragged tear in the blouse on the under-side of the sleeve. “It’s not very bad—I think—but it seems to be bleeding a good deal, and I—I am afraid of blood.”

“May I look at it?” I asked. “I could perhaps bandage it, and—”

“Are you a doctor—how nice!” she cried.

“No,” I replied with a smile, “I am not a doctor. But I am a first-aid expert, enough of one, anyway, to say whether or not a doctor is necessary. Yes, I have treated much bigger injuries than this. It is only a scratch, I fancy, and the blood looks more than it really is. A very little blood makes a mess of things. Lie still a minute. I have everything here within reach and we’ll soon put you right.”

I brought a pair of scissors and cut away the sleeve, finding the arm beneath it—the left arm, by the way—rather badly gashed.

“To-morrow you must show that to a doctor,” I said when I had washed and bandaged it. “Now I will give you a glass of wine and—”

“Is there anyone but you in the house?” the girl asked abruptly, as if some thought had suddenly occurred to her.

“There is my housekeeper,” I said, “and a maid. Shall I rouse them and—?”

“Mercy, no!” she exclaimed. “Whatever would they say if they found me here—at this time of night—?”

I nodded, quite comprehending the hint so conveyed.

“I have been visiting a friend,” she went on, observing me keenly through her drooping eyelashes, perhaps to see how I took the story, “and I—I lost my way.”

“Your friends should not have allowed you to attempt to find it by yourself,” I returned.

“My friends are not plural,” she retorted with a little trill of laughter. “They—or rather she—she is a maiden lady—and I am not in the least bit nervous. I am a country girl by birth and upbringing, and the darkness means nothing to me. It is the fog that worries me. I stayed later than I should have done, and in my hurry to get back I lost my way. Then I saw the light in your window and I came, meaning to ask where I was. I had to climb over a wall, and in doing that I cut my arm on some glass. I think it is very stupid to put glass on walls—”

“It shall be knocked off to-morrow,” I interrupted.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” the girl said demurely. “I am not likely to come this way again. But do you know Cartordale?”

“Well, know is hardly the word. I am afraid I don’t very well. I have only been here a short time,” I answered. “I know very few people. I have never seen you before, for example.”

That was a leading question very thinly disguised, but she did not rise to it.

“I am afraid,” I went on, “it would be but another instance of the blind leading the blind if I attempted to guide you about the Dale. I will do my best if you will tell me where you live, unless, indeed, you would prefer to stay here until morning. The place is at your service and I could very easily waken the—”

But my visitor’s negative gesture was very decided.

“What house is this?” she demanded.

“It is called Stone Hollow,” I told her.

“Oh, I know Stone Hollow,” she cried. “It was Mrs.—Mrs.—a lady with a curious name, but I have forgotten it.”

“Mrs. Mackaluce,” I volunteered. “She was my aunt.”

“Yes, that was the name, I remember now. I have been here before, but never by the—the back window. If you can put me on the roadway outside Stone Hollow I shall know where I am.”

“I can take you home, at all events, if you can show me the way,” I said.

The girl looked at me for a moment or two doubtfully as if that were not quite what she had intended.

“It is not right that you should be out alone at this time of the night,” I added.

“Oh, right and wrong are merely terms,” she replied, rising to her feet. “There is no law against being out at night. It isn’t forbidden in the Defence of the Realm Act, is it? If I like to be out at night it is right I should be.”

“I was thinking of the danger, not of the law,” I responded dryly.

“Why, whatever danger can there be?” the girl cried, opening wide her pretty eyes. “There are no highway robbers in Cartordale, nor any Germans.”

But I did not argue with her. I simply handed her the woollen cap which had fallen off when she fainted, then helped her to fasten the cloak around her, and finally led her into the hall, picking up my own hat and coat as I went. I was fully determined on seeing her to her own home, wherever that might be and whatever her objections. I opened the door noiselessly and closed it again with the merest click of the lock.

“It is very dark,” I muttered, being a man of the town and used to gas-lamps.

“Yes, it often is at midnight,” the girl replied demurely, but with a little catch in her voice as if she were choking back a laugh. “But I can see very well. Those who are country-born have eyes in their feet, you know, and never miss the path. Why, there are men of the Dale, and women too, for that matter, who will walk across the moors at dark and never miss the path for all it is no more than three feet wide.”

“But you have lost your way once already to-night,” I murmured.

“That doesn’t affect the question,” she retorted scornfully. “It was only because I was trying a short cut. I left the path of my own accord. If I had kept to the road I should have been home by now. The longest way round is the quickest way home. Is that a proverb? It sounds like one. If it isn’t it should be. It is true, anyway. Besides, it is foggy. That makes a difference. Give me your hand.”

Apparently she did see better than I, for the next minute I felt the grip of her slender fingers as she seized mine and began to pull me forward. We went swiftly and in silence, still hand in hand, for some minutes, then her clasp loosened.

For a moment or two the shadow of her lingered beside me, then suddenly disappeared into the fog. We had reached a part of the Dale that was flanked on one side by a wall of rock which deepened even the blackness of the night and made the darkness, to me, at all events, absolutely impenetrable. There was no sign of light or house, nor indeed of any building, and when I groped my way to the side of the road, I stumbled, first into a ditch and then against a low rubble wall, beyond which was only fog much thicker now than it had been earlier in the evening.

And it was there I lost her. How she went, or in which direction, I had no idea. But I had no doubt that she had evaded me of design—and that her home was nowhere thereabout. That she knew the Dale intimately was evident. She had deliberately led me to its darkest spot simply that she might there lose me. I smiled grimly as I realised that. She had fooled me with incomparable skill and wit. I paid a frank mental tribute to her cleverness. A young lady of brains, this, and one whose acquaintance was well worth cultivating.

I stood waiting for some little time—possibly ten minutes or a quarter of an hour—then lit a cigarette and walked slowly back to Stone Hollow, pondering over the queer little adventure, wondering who the girl was and whether—or rather when—I should see her again. She was evidently an inhabitant of the Dale—her familiarity with it at all events suggested that—in which case she could hardly expect to evade me permanently. I must sooner or later meet and recognise her. At any rate it was a piquant little mystery, and I must confess that somehow Cartordale no longer seemed quite so dull as it had been.

I had little idea then as to what the mystery, in which I had thus become involved, really was or how quickly it would develop on tragic and very unexpected lines.

I reached Stone Hollow again at 2.7 a.m. The whole episode, from the knock on the window to my return home had occupied two hours fourteen minutes.

CHAPTER II
THE TRAGEDY AT WHITE TOWERS

When I came down to Stone Hollow to take over my new inheritance, I found the house completely furnished on extremely comfortable if rather old-fashioned lines; and Martha Helter in possession. She had been my aunt’s housekeeper for over twenty years and had evidently every intention of being mine also. I was quite agreeable, since it saved me a lot of trouble, nor have I so far seen any reason to regret that decision.

Mrs. Helter—the title had apparently been accorded her by courtesy, since she was still a spinster and everybody but myself used it; but I began with Martha, her Christian name, and Martha it is to this day—is a most capable manager and runs my household with a precision that reminds one of well-oiled wheels, and a careful economy that has its recommendation in these days of ridiculous prices. She seemed to know and to be known by almost everybody in the Dale, and was an all but exhaustless fountain of anecdote and news.

I say “all but” because she could not give me immediately the information I sought regarding my pretty midnight visitor. Not that I attached very much actual importance to that queer incident. It had amused me, and perhaps, though I would not confess it even to myself, I was just a little piqued at being so cleverly outwitted by a mere girl. I had cause during the day to revise my estimate of the interest I was to take in my uninvited guest. But my first thought was to identify her.

“Martha,” I said to my housekeeper, “did you ever meet hereabouts a young lady wearing a grey woollen cap and a long cloak without sleeves, a sort of cape reaching to her boots?”

Martha Helter pondered the question for a minute or two, but shook her head.

“I don’t think I have ever seen a cloak like that in Cartordale,” she replied.

“I saw one yesterday,” I said, “and I wondered who the wearer was. Never mind, perhaps I shall see her—I mean it—again. It was the pattern of the cloak that took my fancy.”

I am not quite sure why I added that last phrase, though if Martha noticed anything she kept a perfectly straight face.

“A grey woollen cap and a long cloak without sleeves?” said the little maid who entered the room at that moment and to whom the housekeeper propounded the question. “Why, yes’m, that’s Miss Kitty Clevedon—lives with her ladyship, you know. There are two gentlemen to see the master,” she added.

“Bring them in,” I said. “Who are they? Do you know them?”

“One of them is Sergeant Gamley, of the County Police,” Susan replied, “but the other is a stranger and did not give his name.”

“Bring them in,” I repeated.

Sergeant Gamley was in uniform, a tall, thin man with a long hatchet face and an air of important solemnity which he never shed. His companion was rather more rotund in build, with puffy red cheeks above which peered small, keen eyes that did not seem to linger long on anything, but which for all that missed nothing. Abraham Pepster was chief of the detective force at Peakborough, the county town, and one may judge to some extent his prevailing characteristic by the fact that his nickname among disrespectful subordinates was “Gimlet-eyes.” It was, however, Sergeant Gamley who opened the conversation on this particular occasion.

“We have called, Mr. Holt,” he said, “with regard to the tragedy at White Towers. Sir Philip Clevedon—”

“A tragedy—of what nature?” I interrupted. “I have heard nothing of it. There is nothing in the papers about it, is there? Or have I missed it?”

I interposed just then because I wanted to slow down the story a little. The girl who had visited me last night was named Clevedon—Susan had just told me so—and now there was a Sir Philip Clevedon and a tragedy. I could not help wondering, of course, what connection there could be between the two, but I was determined to feel my way cautiously, resolved not to be hustled or bounced into saying more than I wanted to say. The story, whatever it was, should come from them without any help from me.

“No, Mr. Holt, I dare say you haven’t heard anything yet—not many have,” Sergeant Gamley went on. “As you say, it isn’t in the papers. You are a stranger among us—yes, yes. For the moment I had forgotten that. I knew your late respected aunt very well indeed, Mr. Holt. There was a little matter of a burglary in this very house some four years ago. Mr. Holt”—he turned to his companion—“has been living here only a very short time. He succeeded the late Mrs. Mackaluce, whose nephew he was.”

“Hadn’t you better tell Mr. Holt what has happened at White Towers?” the other man suddenly interrupted, speaking in a small, soft voice that was rather curiously in contrast with his bulk, and without any trace of impatience. He had perhaps been as willing as myself that the conversation should not be hurried.

“You can see White Towers from the upper windows of your own house, Mr. Holt,” Sergeant Gamley continued. “It lies between you and the village, a large house with an outstanding turret and two smaller towers.”

“I have seen it,” I said, “but my housekeeper said it was White Abbey, if that is the place you mean.”

“The good lady is a little mixed,” was Gamley’s reply.

He was proud of his local antiquarian knowledge and delighted to parade it, being, indeed, a frequent contributor to the local papers and regarded as an authority on county history in general and Cartordale in particular.

“White Towers,” he went on, “stands on the site of the old White Abbey. The older name survives, but the present house, of which Sir Philip Clevedon is the owner—was the owner—”

If there is such a thing as an inward smile I indulged in one then. The method was so obvious and I had so often used it myself. Pepster was allowing the other man to go maundering on while he himself kept me under careful observation. I do not, however, allow my thoughts to be written on my face, and I merely listened impassively. Pepster seemed at last to recognise that he was not likely to get much help as things were going, for he brushed Gamley aside and took up the story himself.

“The fact is, Mr. Holt,” he said bluntly, “Sir Philip Clevedon was found dead this morning—stabbed—”

He paused there and I waited, making no sign.

“With a lady’s hatpin,” he added, “a big, three-cornered affair with a silver knob.”

I had a swift vision of a white, frightened face beneath a woollen cap, but I could not quite connect the girl of the previous night’s visit with any thought of crime. She did not fit into a picture of that sort. Yet I knew as certainly as if she had told me that she was in some way mixed up with it all. And why had they come to me? Did they know of that midnight visit? I was determined that they should tell me. I would give them no lead. They must do all the talking. Pepster, after a rather lengthy pause, seemed to realise the position.

“Perhaps you wonder why we come to you,” he said in his small, soft voice. “It was merely on the chance that in your late stroll last night—”

So they did know I had been out. Had they also seen my companion?

“—Sergeant Gamley—you stood to light a cigarette and the match lit up your face.”

Pepster paused there again with an obvious appearance of waiting. Following the normal course, the person addressed should now break into more or less voluble explanations of the why and wherefore of this midnight stroll, explanations which the detective could weigh as they came forth and so form some estimate of their value or otherwise to the quest on which he was engaged. There might be nothing in it. Pepster knew full well that he would interview and interrogate scores of persons during the next few days and would have to sift a prodigious amount of chaff on the off chance of an occasional grain of wheat. In any case he had to go on sifting. That was his job.

“Seeing your name was mentioned in the way it was,” Pepster went on, “I thought you might like to explain—”

“Yes?” I said inquiringly, “explain?”

“Your name was mentioned, you know,” Pepster murmured.

“So you have told me. But what is it you wish me to explain?”

“You were out very late last night,” Pepster remarked.

“Let us be a trifle more explicit,” I said. “It comes to this—if you suspect me of having any hand in killing Sir Philip Clevedon with a three-cornered hatpin, you have no right to question me. It is against your rules, isn’t it, for you to trip me up and entrap me? If I am not under suspicion I do not quite see whither your questions lead. You may produce the handcuffs or take me into your confidence. But in any case,” I added with a quick smile, “I reserve my defence.”

“You are a bit off the rails, Mr. Holt,” Pepster returned with unabated calm. “I know of nothing which should connect you with the murder, nothing at all. But your name was mentioned, and it is my duty to question everybody who may be in the remotest degree linked up with the affair in case by any chance they may afford me information. Do you mind telling me why you were out so late last night?”

“I was taking a stroll.”

“It was a very foggy, unpleasant night.”

“It was extremely so.”

“And consequently very dark.”

“That coincides with my own recollection.”

“A stroll in a thick fog!”

“My dear sir, you ask me a question. I answer it in good faith, and you disbelieve me.”

“No, no, not at all,” Pepster said blandly. “I accept your word implicitly. It was not the object and inspiration of the—er—the stroll that interested me.”

“No? You were not wondering whether I was coming from or going to White Towers? I am glad of that,” I returned with apparently great satisfaction. “In point of fact the stroll was a mere whim on my part, induced mainly, I may say, by the hope that it would assist me to a night’s sound sleep. I had been writing. One reason why I maintain my cabbage-like existence in a God-forgotten corner of the country like this is that I may write a book. But writing renders the brain a little over-active and—”

I broke off there and waited for the other to continue.

“What I really wanted to know,” Pepster went on, “was whether you saw or met anybody during your stroll.”

“I saw nobody and met nobody,” I responded equably.

“Somebody passed a few minutes previously,” Pepster continued. “Gamley here heard them talking, a man and a woman. But he could not distinguish them. He thought no more of it at the time, of course. Nothing was known of the murder then. He recognised you only because you struck a match to light your cigarette. But you were alone.”

He nodded to Sergeant Gamley and picked up his hat.

“Would it be impertinent,” I asked, “to inquire whether you have any clue, any idea, any theory—”

“Oh, I never theorise,” Pepster replied with bland serenity. “It is only story-book detectives who theorise. Theories are too much of a luxury for professionals. Facts are my stock-in-trade. I do not travel outside those.”

“You have the hatpin,” I suggested.

“Yes,” he replied vaguely, “we have the hatpin.”

But he had evidently no intention of talking about that.

When they had gone I set myself down to concentrate my thoughts—on the girl’s woollen cap. I have so trained my faculty of observation—just as a conjurer trains his fingers or a dancer her feet—that I see everything even to the smallest detail, though often without making any conscious record of it at the time. When the girl fainted in my arms her woollen cap had fallen off. Consequently there had been no hatpin, though, as I visualised it, I remembered that on the rim of grey cloth which bound the knitted shape, there were marks showing that a hatpin had been in use. Was it with her hatpin that Sir Philip Clevedon had been done to death?

There you—this to the reader—have the case set forth, and you are in exactly the same position that I was myself—a stranger to the place and the people, knowing practically nobody and with every item of information yet to seek. But we both of us have one small advantage over the police. The latter, as far as I could make out, knew nothing of Miss Kitty Clevedon’s midnight adventure.

CHAPTER III
A MEETING IN THE DARK

I had not long to wait before making further acquaintance with my pretty midnight visitor. Our second meeting took place within a few hours of the police call and on the same day. I had been out for a long walk across the hills and was tramping steadily along the high road towards Stone Hollow, when I saw, gleaming through the darkness—it was already dark though only late afternoon—at probably the loneliest and most desolate spot in the Dale, the headlights of a motor-car evidently at a standstill.

“It’s a weird place for a halt and worse if it’s a breakdown,” I murmured, and involuntarily quickened my steps.

But as I approached the car I saw a moving light and then the shadow of a woman walking towards me, carrying, apparently, a small electric torch. Evidently she had heard my approach and had set out to meet me. As she stepped momentarily into the light of the car I recognised her. It was the girl of the midnight visit.

“Who is it, Kitty?” demanded a quick, imperious voice somewhere in the darkness. “Tell him to come here. Do you know him?”

“Lady Clevedon is in the car,” the girl said a little hurriedly. “Will you come and speak to her?”

“Is it a breakdown?” I queried.

“No,” the girl responded, “it is Hartrey. We have lost him.”

But I had no immediate opportunity of questioning her as to the missing Hartrey, or the manner of his going, for “Kitty,” as the old lady had addressed her, had run to the door of the car and pulled it open, to reveal old Lady Clevedon, white of hair, very erect of figure, rather stern of face and with keen, searching eyes that just now were full of wrath.

“Is there anything I can do?” I began.

“You can find Hartrey,” her ladyship responded, not exactly snappily, but quite ungently; she was evidently used to giving orders, and it never occurred to her, apparently, that I would do any other than obey.

“Who is Hartrey?” I demanded.

“He is the chauffeur,” the girl explained. “We sent him with a message to Lepley’s farm—it is over there.”

She pointed vaguely into the darkness, and I followed her gesture with my eyes. But I could see no sign of house or light or living creature—only the darkness and, in the fore-ground, the blurred outlines of masses of rock.

“It should not have taken him ten minutes,” the girl went on, “but he has been gone for more than half an hour.”

“How far is the farm-house?” I asked. “It is rather queer we cannot see any lights.”

“Oh, I think there are some barns or something of the sort between the road and the house,” Miss Kitty Clevedon told me. “And, besides, it lies in a hollow and the rocks may hide it. I have seen the place before, but only in daylight, and I forget just how it stands.”

“If you will allow me I will go as far as the house and inquire,” I said, producing my own electric lamp. “Possibly your man has tripped over a stone—”

“Tripped over a stone!” her ladyship cried scornfully. “He’s more likely philandering with the Lepley girl. Do you know her?”

I replied in the negative, adding that, indeed I had never heard of her.

“Well, you’re the only man in the Dale that doesn’t know her,” the old lady retorted. “Oh, no, there’s nothing wrong with the girl, but the men are crazy over her, and Hartrey with the rest, I suppose.”

I could not help being a little entertained by the idea that I might be a competitor with the chauffeur for the favours of the fair Lepley. But I did not put the thought into words. I hadn’t an opportunity, indeed, for the old lady threw off her rugs and made evident preparations to alight.

“If you would wait here, I could go alone,” I ventured, thinking the search would be hampered rather than helped by the old lady’s presence. But she did not even answer me. She stepped from the car with an agility which showed that her body was still younger than her years, and herself led the way towards a gap in the tumble-down, rubble wall where once apparently had been a gate. The car, I noticed, was standing well aside on the rough turf that flanked the roadway, and, in any case, there was little enough traffic in those parts at that time of the year. We might leave it there in safety. And accordingly the three of us made our way along the very rough and uneven road that led to Lepley’s farm.

“No,” said the farmer’s wife, who answered my rap at the door, “Mr. Hartrey has not been here to-night.”

She called to somebody who was evidently in a kitchen at the rear of the house.

“Perhaps he tripped ovver a stoan and hurt hisself,” the farmer’s wife went on, “though if it’s that it seems queer you saw nowt of him as you came along. Besides, I don’t know what he would be doing tripping ovver a boulder, anyway. I reckon he knows the road blindfolded, and there are no boulders to hurt if you keep to the path.”

I could have argued that point with her, for I had nearly twisted my ankle on one group of boulders and had badly barked my shins on another. But it was hardly worth while debating it, since apparently Hartrey had not tripped over a boulder or we should have tripped over him. At this moment, too, a girl emerged from the kitchen, carrying a lamp held high so that she might see who the visitors were. Her sharper eyes discovered the two ladies, and she made a step towards them.

“Her ladyship!” she cried, “and Miss Kitty! Come right in. What is the trouble?”

That was my first introduction to Nora Lepley, a young woman of whom I was to know a good deal more before I finished with her. She was tall and finely built, with plentiful hair so dark as to be almost black, and eyes that in some lights seemed to be of a rich purple and in others of a sombre, rather heavy blue. They were wonderful eyes and one had no need to wonder that the men of the Dale should be, to use Lady Clevedon’s words, “crazy over her.” She had then more admirers than she could count on the fingers of both her slim, capable hands, and is still unmarried. I think I know why, though I have hardly any right to say so.

She spoke with an educated intonation, in curious contrast with her mother, who used the ordinary dialect of the Dale. Beautiful, clever, educated, entirely self-possessed, she was certainly something of a novelty to discover in a Cartordale farm-house.

“I thought you were at White Towers with your aunt,” Lady Clevedon said.

“I have just run home to get some clothes,” the girl replied. “I am going back to-night to stay with Aunty. She is terribly upset. But what is the trouble here?”

“The trouble is,” Lady Clevedon retorted grimly, “that I have a fool for a chauffeur. I sent him here with a message, but he hasn’t been nor did he come back to us. He went off into the darkness and apparently stopped there, leaving me and the car on the roadway for anybody to run into.”

“Well, he hasn’t been here,” the girl said, with a decision that was evidently characteristic of her. “Wait until I get a lantern and we’ll look for him.”

Lady Clevedon followed Mrs. Lepley and her daughter into the house, and for a minute or two Miss Kitty Clevedon and I were left together in the porch. She could have followed the others into the house, but for some reason preferred to wait outside. Possibly she wanted to see what I would do. She did not look at me—I noticed that—but stood near the door, not quite with her back to me, but so that if it had been light I could not have seen her face. She did not speak to me, but I had of course no intention that she should get off as easily as that.

“I hope your arm is better,” I said, speaking softly, so that no sound of my voice might reach those inside.

“I beg your pardon,” the girl returned icily.

“I was expressing the hope that your arm was better,” I explained.

“But there is nothing the matter with my arm—thank you.”

The girl’s voice was perfectly cool and without the slightest sign of flurry or perturbation.

“I may congratulate you on a wonderfully quick recovery, then,” I responded.

“I do not understand you—what was supposed to be the matter with my arm?”

“I was told—it was rumoured—that you had cut it—climbing a wall—a wall with glass on top.”

“I do not climb walls.”

“I don’t suppose you make a hobby of it, but every one does queer things now and again.”

“Such as addressing impertinent observations to a lady one meets for the first time,” she rapped out.

There was a rather lengthy pause, and then I made one more attempt to break down her defences.

“I was very sorry to hear of the—the tragedy at White Towers,” I said softly. “It was a queer coincidence—”

But if I thought to disconcert her by that remark I had miscalculated. She made no reply, but simply walked a few steps away and left me standing. Her acting was perfect. I could not forbear a smile, though at the same time I admired both her courage and her cleverness. Anyone less alert would have admitted our meeting and tried in some way to secure my silence. She did nothing of the sort, but ignored the whole matter, putting up a big bluff in the assurance that since there had been no witnesses to the little midnight incident I should hesitate to tell the story lest I should not be believed. Of course I knew very well that if I had really been guilty of the impertinence of which she had accused me she would not have received it quite in that way. However, I had no opportunity for further efforts because just at that moment the Lepley girl reappeared with a shawl over her head and a big lantern in her hand, her mother and Lady Clevedon following her.

We went slowly along in a sort of zigzag, going for six or eight yards to the left of the roadway and then recrossing it and covering a similar space on the opposite side. It was a lengthy process and it was wasted time, because, as we neared the car, we saw Hartrey standing by it, looking from left to right into the darkness, evidently with rather dismal forebodings.

“He’s there!” Miss Kitty Clevedon cried in accents of relief, but the tone in which her ladyship echoed the phrase was quite otherwise. The latter approached the car and demanded to know what Hartrey meant by leaving her alone there on the high road and why he had not gone to the farm to deliver her message.

“I lost my way, my lady, in the darkness,” the man replied. “I found myself at the bend of the road higher up—”

“Now, Hartrey,” her ladyship said severely, “when I engaged you I gave you extra wages on condition that you should be teetotal.”

“My lady, I have not touched anything of the sort for nearly seven years.”

“And you—what is your name?” the old lady demanded, turning suddenly on me.

“My name is Dennis Holt and I live at Stone Hollow,” I replied, amused and not at all offended at the old lady’s brusqueness.

“Oh, yes, I know, nephew to Mrs. Mackaluce. I remember hearing about you from Dr. Crawford. Well, thanks for your help. Now, Kitty, come along. Good bye, Mr. Holt.”

“Can you find your way back all right?” I said, turning to Nora Lepley, who had stood silent during the conversation and whom the old lady had not thanked.

“But I live here,” she replied, with a quick laugh, “and I don’t always come home by daylight. Good night, Mr. Holt.”

Old Lady Clevedon had amused me hugely. She was evidently what the country people would call “a character” whose acquaintance might be worth cultivating. But it was the pretty niece who attracted all my attention, and I made up my mind that I must become interested in the tragedy at White Towers. There might be no connection between that and Miss Kitty Clevedon’s midnight wanderings. The latter might be susceptible of the most innocent explanation. But it was in that case a queer coincidence, and though I am far from denying that coincidences play a large and weighty part in human affairs, I instinctively distrust them. This might be one, but until I could prove the affirmative I preferred to admit a possible negative, or at all events to keep an open mind.

CHAPTER IV
THE SILVER-HEADED HATPIN

The Midlington evening papers reached Cartordale about seven o’clock. To accomplish that they had to be printed somewhere about 3.30 p.m., and accordingly were rather early editions. Nevertheless, the one I saw contained a very good account of the Clevedon tragedy, though, as I could well see, reading between the lines, one which the police had carefully supervised. The press and the police work in very much closer accord than most people realise. They help one another, and the wise newspaper man never gives away anything the police desire to keep secret. In return for that the press receives all sorts of information otherwise inaccessible to it. I have many thousands of newspaper cuttings, all carefully indexed, of which I make good use in the compilation of my books. Newspapers give the facts that are known with creditable accuracy, though really what remains unknown is frequently the more important. The whole story is not always told.

And the press may and often does materially assist the police. If the latter wish to publish some item broadcast, the description of some individual, particulars of a missing weapon, details that may bring further items and possibly produce an unsuspected clue, they go to the press, which very quickly and efficiently gives them all the publicity they want. They do not deliberately keep things from the press. Any such attempt defeats its own end. It is the reporter’s job to get news and he is an expert at it.

But if you tell the press all you know with a reservation as to what may not be published, the secret is safe enough. In a very long and varied experience I never knew a newspaper man to break a promise or violate a confidence. Some journals, of course, make a speciality of crime investigation on their own account, and clever enough they are at it. But even they will suppress an item of news if the police ask it, and frequently when they discover some fact unknown to the police will inquire before publishing whether it is desirable or safe. The ordinary man’s idea that the press thinks first and only of its news column is a delusion. Very often a newspaper knows a lot more than it says.

From the account in the Midlington evening paper I learnt that Sir Philip Clevedon had dined alone soon after seven o’clock. At the conclusion of dinner he retired to his study according to his usual custom. At a quarter past eight he received a visit from Miss Kitty Clevedon, who had motored over from Hapforth House, the residence of Lady Clevedon, with a message to Mrs. Halfleet, the housekeeper. Miss Clevedon left before nine o’clock, and at 11.30 Sir Philip rang for his man Tulmin and ordered a whisky-and-soda, giving also some instructions regarding a contemplated journey to London on the morrow. Tulmin went off to bed, and thereafter was a long blank from 11.30 or so until between six and seven o’clock in the morning, when Miss Nora Lepley found Sir Philip lying dead on the couch in his study with the hatpin driven through his heart. Those were the facts out of which the reporter had made several columns. But the summary is sufficient for my purpose.

There was, of course, a description of the hatpin, which was eight inches long, with a flat, circular head of silver about the size of a shilling and a three-sided or three-cornered blade of steel that tapered off to a very fine point—an unusual hatpin that more resembled a silver-headed skewer or stiletto. It had been driven into the body so that the head was close up to the white shirt-front—as far as it would go, in fact—but any bleeding had apparently been internal, since there was none discernible either on the exterior of the body or on the clothing.

I made a careful note of the times. Tulmin had last seen his master alive at about 11.30. It was 11.53 when the girl tapped at my window. When I had read the newspaper story I sent for Martha Helter, my housekeeper.

“Who is Lady Clevedon?” I asked her, “and what relation is Miss Kitty Clevedon to Sir Philip?”

“It is a little bit complicated, you see,” she said, seating herself on the extreme edge of a big arm-chair. “Lady Clevedon is the widow of the late baronet who died some years ago—before the war, anyway. She was Miss Ursula Hapforth before her marriage, and when her husband died she went back to Hapforth House, which had been left her by her father, whose only child she was. The Hapforths are older than the Clevedons in these parts.”

“But perhaps not so wealthy?”

“Oh, I don’t know for that. They have plenty of money.”

“And this Sir Philip—was he her son?”

But I recollected that her attitude had been anything but that of a bereaved mother when I saw her a short time before.

“No, she never had any children,” Martha told me.

“Oh, then—but go on, Martha.”

I had been about to remark that Miss Kitty was not, therefore, Lady Clevedon’s daughter, but had thought better of it. I should get more out of Martha, I reflected, by allowing her to tell her story in her own way.

“This Sir Philip was a cousin of the other baronet,” my housekeeper went on, “and next to him comes Mr. Billy Clevedon, who is Miss Kitty’s brother. He is in the army. They say that he and Sir Philip quarrelled, and there are all sorts of rumours about. Miss Kitty lives with Lady Clevedon. I believe she has some money of her own, though I don’t know how much. Her father was a rector down in Cornwall, but he’s been dead a long time now.”

“And this Sir Philip—where did he come from?”

“From somewhere abroad, I think. He was not very young, perhaps forty-five, and he wasn’t married. We didn’t see a lot of him in Cartordale—he lived mostly in London. He was not friends, they say, with Lady Clevedon, though I should not think they had really quarrelled. He was a stiff, solemn sort of man, and not very popular.”

In point of fact the Clevedon title was one of the oldest surviving baronetcies, though there had been Clevedons in the Dale long before James I invented baronets as a new means of raising revenue. The Clevedons had all been politicians of varying degrees of importance, frequently unimportant. A minor Minister or two, a Colonial governor or so, a small Embassy, all urbane, honest, honourable, but occasionally unintelligent personages, belonging to what one might describe as the great Official class, which has ruled England since the days of the Tudors, doing most things badly but generally with clean hands.

But the late Sir Philip Clevedon was something of a mystery. No one had heard of him until the death of his cousin had given him the title. He had never been in Cartordale before that, and was entirely unknown even to his relatives. They had no idea even where he lived. Rumour was almost equally divided between America and Australia, but without any real foundation, since he himself vouchsafed no information on the point. Among the people of the Dale, as Martha indeed had told me, he had not been popular. He was too chilly and unemotional in his manner and, being frequently absent for lengthy periods, took no real part in the life of the Dale and, apparently, little interest in its concerns. To many of the inhabitants he was not even known by sight.

All this is a summary not only of what Martha told me, but of what I subsequently gathered.

When I had finished with Martha I went out and met Detective Pepster strolling in casual fashion through the village. I should have missed him in the darkness but that we stepped at the same time into the light cast across the roadway by the “Waggon and Horses,” Tim Dallott’s roadside inn, famed far and wide among visitors to the Dale.

“You haven’t been to arrest me yet,” I said, as Pepster returned my salute.

“No,” he replied, with a placid grin, “we are giving you a little more rope.”

“You have taken a load off my mind,” I returned cheerfully. “But are you quite sure? Sudden temptation, you know, and—and so on.”

“Ah, you are pulling my leg, Mr. Holt,” Pepster replied affably.

“But you did suspect me,” I urged, wondering how far the detective might be amenable to pumping.

Some of them are, but not those who know their job.

“Well, suspect—that’s rather a big word,” Pepster said thoughtfully. “You see, the law says a man is innocent until he is proved guilty, but a detective who knows his business proceeds the other way about. Everybody is guilty in his eyes until the facts prove their innocence. There is only one man I am absolutely sure did not commit this murder, and that is myself, but nobody save me has any call to be sure even of that. Now you, for example—could you prove an alibi for that night if I took it into my head to charge you?”

“We will suppose I could not—for the sake of argument.”

“Just so, but then, you see, something else is required. Society is based on a notion that ordinary, normal men act in an ordinary, normal manner and don’t go about murdering each other for the mere fun of the thing. It is like people walking along a city pavement while motor-cars are dashing to and fro in the roadway. The three or four inches by which the pavement is raised are no protection at all should a motor-car take a sudden swerve, but pedestrians go ambling quietly on in the knowledge that the normal thing is for motor-cars to keep their own place, and that when they go wrong it is because something has happened. Yes, Society is based on the prevalence of the normal. When you hear, for instance, that one man has killed another, you take it for granted there was a reason—what we call a motive. And the motive is vital. Sometimes the why of a murder reveals the who, and sometimes the who explains the why. But the two must go together.”

“Your philosophy is both interesting and accurate,” I said. “And what of the hatpin?”

“Ah, the hatpin,” Pepster replied thoughtfully. “But that may have been an accident and not the woman in the case.”

“The woman?” I said inquiringly, my thought going instantly to my midnight visitor. “Yes, of course, a hatpin does suggest a woman, doesn’t it?”

“There may be a woman in it,” Pepster went on, gently garrulous, “but I don’t know that the hatpin brings her in. Some woman owns the hatpin, no doubt, but that isn’t to say that she used it. Though it does help things wonderfully to get a woman into a case, even though it may complicate it. No doubt there would be a man in it too. There generally is. Women seldom play a lone hand. But they have always been a fruitful source of crime in men ever since Adam had to declare that the woman tempted him and he did eat. I have always thought ill of Adam for that—for telling, I mean. It’s not the sort of thing a real man would have blurted out. But for all that it was true—it was true then and it has been true ever since. Women—”

“And as you say,” I interrupted gently, “it would be a woman’s hatpin.”

“Oh, yes, it would be a woman’s hatpin. Sir Philip Clevedon didn’t wear them—not that I ever heard. And we have identified it, you know. It belongs to Lady Clevedon and, as far as I can make out, Miss Kitty Clevedon borrowed it when she went to see the housekeeper earlier that evening. It will be in all the papers to-morrow. There seemed no particular reason to keep it secret.”

“According to the newspapers, Miss Clevedon went to see the housekeeper, Mrs. Halfleet,” I observed. “Did she take her hat off? Where did she leave the pin?”

“Those questions have been asked and answered,” Pepster replied. “She was caught in a shower of rain on her way to White Towers and took off her hat to dry it. She does not recollect where she laid the pin down, but it must have been somewhere in the housekeeper’s room. She did not see Sir Philip Clevedon and did not enter the study where later the body was found.”

“The housekeeper—?”

“Knows nothing of the hatpin—does not remember Miss Clevedon laying it down, and in fact never saw it until she was brought to her dead master. It was Lady Clevedon herself who identified the hatpin and told me all about it.”

“So that instead of one woman you have three,” I murmured.

“Yes, three women but not the woman. Hullo! there’s Dr. Crawford, and I want to speak to him.”

He nodded a quick farewell and went off with long strides after the doctor. Considering his bulk and his apparently leisurely methods of thought and speech, Pepster was curiously quick and active in his movements.

“Do you know Mrs. Halfleet?” I asked my own housekeeper when I again reached home.

“Oh, yes, quite well,” she replied. “I have known her for years. A little stand-offish in her manner, but quite pleasant face to face.”

“About how old would she be?” I queried.

“Oh, well, let me see. I am—yes, she must be quite sixty, perhaps a year or two older.”

“Not a young woman, anyway.”

“Oh, dear no, not a young woman. She is the widow of a minister, a Methodist, I think, who was at a church in Midlington when he died. That must be a good sixteen years ago. Lady Clevedon, who was living at White Towers then, her husband being alive, brought her in as housekeeper, and the present—I mean the late—Sir Philip kept her on. She is sister to Mrs. Lepley, but far more of a lady—”

I switched the conversation on to other lines, leaving Mrs. Halfleet for later investigation.

The case, you will note, has advanced another stage. The weapon has been identified. The queer hatpin, with the three-cornered blade and the silver knob, was the property of Lady Clevedon, who lived at Hapforth House. Miss Kitty Clevedon borrowed it and so conveyed it to White Towers where, apparently, she left it. That was all very interesting and quite simple, but probably irrelevant. The question was not who had owned the hatpin or who had worn it, but who had used it.

The question of time becomes interesting here. Tulmin, the valet, had seen his master alive at 11.30, and the girl had visited me at 11.53. She certainly had committed no murder at White Towers in that interval. It was a physical impossibility. I had carefully assured myself regarding that. It would have required at the very minimum another fifteen or twenty minutes. But I had lost her in the darkness somewhere before 2 a.m. As I have already said, it was seven minutes past two when I reached Stone Hollow again on that night (or rather early morning), and allowing for the time I stood after she had evaded me, and for the walk homewards, I judged that it would be about 1.15 when she disappeared into the darkness. What had her movements been after that?

It must not be supposed that I suspected the girl of having had any hand in the tragedy, though I by no means ruled her out. Her beauty and youth did not weigh with me at all. I had found both in even greater measure in proven criminals. Besides which, a murder is not invariably a crime.

But I had two ascertained facts—that Kitty Clevedon had worn the hatpin to White Towers, and that she had been abroad in the Dale during the early hours of that tragic morning.

CHAPTER V
KITTY CLEVEDON AND RONALD THOYNE

I met Sergeant Gamley, the officer who had called on me in company with Detective Pepster, and I asked him whether the public would be admitted freely to the inquest.

“Well,” he said slowly, “I suppose they have the right, but the accommodation is very limited, very. When the witnesses and the lawyers and the family and the police and the reporters and people who must be there are squeezed in there’ll not be a lot of room for outsiders. Did you want—ah, now, I am looking for another juryman. Stokkins has fallen ill. How would you like—?”

“Excellent!” I interrupted. “As long as you don’t make me foreman it will suit me very well. I should like to hear the story in full—being a neighbour, you know.”

I did not add that it would also afford me an opportunity of seeing the body without making any obvious attempt in that connection.

It was an ordinary country jury, consisting mostly of farmers, with a small shopkeeper or two, and Tim Dallott, landlord of the “Waggon and Horses,” as foreman. We visited the chamber where the body lay, but it did not add anything to my knowledge except that I was able to form some idea what the man had looked like in life, which did at least add to the interest of the mystery.

An inquest is a singularly useless form of inquiry at its best. It is doubly and trebly so when the police use it, as frequently they do, for purposes of their own, to conceal the truth rather than reveal it. The real duty of the jury is to determine the cause of death, for, though it may declare that So-and-so was a murderer, the actual demands of the law are satisfied if the jury simply decides that a murder has been committed. A coroner who knows his business does not travel far outside the brief allotted him by the police, and generally manages—though not invariably—to keep his jury within the limits assigned himself.

I have had a long and very varied experience of inquests and was not, therefore, surprised that the inquiry regarding Sir Philip Clevedon’s death should be merely formally opened and then immediately adjourned, for the purpose, it was stated, of a post-mortem examination. I regarded that as a mere subterfuge—in which, as it happened, I was wrong—and easily realised that the police did not want as yet to tell all they knew, which in its turn suggested that they had some sort of a line on the murderer and did not desire to give him (or her) any information.

Meanwhile I busied myself making some very careful inquiries regarding Miss Kitty Clevedon. Through her midnight visit to me, I was in possession of some information so far not within the knowledge of the police, unless, indeed, she had herself told them, which I doubted; and I intended, for a bit at all events, to keep it to myself. Exactly what connection she had with the tragedy I could not say, but I meant that she should tell me—in which determination I reckoned without Kitty Clevedon. I met her as she was walking from Cartordale to Hapforth House. She was warmly clad in furs and, a little flushed by the wind that was blowing smartly across the moors, was looking very pretty and attractive. She saw me approaching her and, curiously enough, made no attempt to avoid me. In point of fact, I expected a direct “cut,” but she stopped as I drew near and even held out her hand.

“Fancy meeting you, Mr. Holt!” she cried.

“I have just been to Hapforth House,” I replied, wondering what might be the explanation of her unexpected cordiality, though I fancy that what she really had in mind was to show that at least she did not fear me. “I—well, in fact,” I went on, “I wanted a word or two with you.”

“With me!”

“May I turn and walk back part of the way with you?” I asked.

“Why, of course,” she replied. “I always prefer company if I can get it, and it’s none too plentiful here. I am used to lonely walks, though one can have too many of them. A woman likes to talk, you know, but one cannot converse with stone walls.”

She rattled on, rather intent apparently on doing most of the talking, as if she did not wish to give me an opportunity. But I merely bided my time, knowing the chance would come; and presently she seemed to realise that, because she interrupted her flow of chatter and turned as if waiting for me to speak.

“You wanted—was it about something particular?” she asked.

The words were all right, but the mocking smile in her eyes, and the set of her pretty lips, rather belied them. She was preparing to meet her adversary with a woman’s weapons.

“It is about the night of the—of the murder,” I began slowly.

“Yes?” she said.

“And of your visit to my house.”

She put up her hand and with a pretty gesture pushed back an unruly curl, meeting my gaze firmly and frankly and without any sign of disquiet.

“But—my visit to your house, Mr. Holt. I do not quite understand. Am I supposed to have visited your house on the night of the—?”

“You intend to deny it?” I asked. “Well, if you consider that worth while I suppose I could not prove it. After all, it would be merely my word against yours. But isn’t such a subterfuge between us two just a little—shall I say—grotesque?”

“Suppose you tell me all about it,” she said quite tranquilly. “Perhaps I have lost my memory. Such things do happen, don’t they? But then there is generally a railway accident, isn’t there, or a motor smash. And I haven’t even knocked my head. Do tell me all about it, Mr. Holt.”

I could not help admiring the skill with which she kept me at arm’s-length. It was grotesque, of course, as I had said, but it was wonderfully clever. Whatever her object, she certainly lacked none of the gifts and qualities of an accomplished actress.

“Doesn’t your attitude suggest,” I said, “that you have—er—something to conceal?”

“Does it?” she asked, opening her eyes wide. “I wonder what it can be? Oh, yes, the night of the—the tragedy. Are you suggesting by any chance that I murdered Sir Philip—is that what you mean, Mr. Holt? Speak out if it is—please do not hesitate.”

“I did not say that.”

“But then what have I to do with it all?” she demanded, stamping her foot as if she were really angry. “You must tell me what you mean, Mr. Holt. You have said too much not to say more. What is it you suspect? You hint at this and hint at that, but say nothing straight out. It is a cowardly way to attack a woman.”

Her voice broke artistically, and she seemed to be on the verge of tears. It was all very cleverly done, and I confess I admired her, though that did not turn me from my purpose. I have had to deal with women in all sorts of moods and every possible disguise, though Kitty Clevedon at that moment was less a woman than a clue in skirts and furs.

“The matter is quite simple,” I said, deliberately brutal, in the hope of startling her out of her calm. “I was only wondering what view the police, for example, would take of your midnight adventure.”

“You had better go and tell them,” she flamed out. “They might believe you, you know.”

“You were in my house on that night,” I said, and waited to see if she would deny the visit even to me.

“So you said before,” she retorted.

“Do you, then, wish to deny that you were in my house on that night?”

“Would you believe me if I did deny it?”

“Of course not—how could I?”

“Then why should I trouble to deny it? You ask me a question and answer it for me, and tell me you will not believe me unless I adopt your answer. That is a convenient method of cross-examining—put the question and invent the answer.”

“And yet you will not deny it—why not deny it and have done with it?”

“Mr. Holt,” she said slowly, “I do not know what you mean.”

That was definite enough, and we walked along for some minutes in silence, the while I considered whether I should press her further just then or carry my inquiries in another direction. I was, however, relieved of the responsibility of immediate decision, for at that moment a man turned the bend of the road and, seeing us there, came towards us and greeted Kitty with the familiarity of an old acquaintance. She on her part welcomed him joyfully, though whether that was from pleasure at seeing him or because he provided a way of escape from further questioning, I did not attempt to decide.

The new-comer was tall and rather heavily built and gave an impression of immense physical strength. His manner was bluff and frank and his eyes kindly and intelligent, but the lines of his mouth were hard, as of a man who had had to fight his way and would be little likely to give quarter to an opponent. He looked like one who wanted much anything he did want, and would leave nothing undone that might secure it. “Honest in a way, but a tough customer,” was my own private summary, and I wondered who the man was.

“I was just going to Hapforth House,” he said, smiling, as he addressed Kitty Clevedon, though the stare he bestowed on me was none too friendly.

I noticed that Kitty made no move to introduce us.

“Oh, yes, Auntie told me she was expecting you—some business matter, isn’t it?” she said. “I warn you there may be a warm half-hour before you. Good-bye, Mr. Holt. It was very kind of you to come this far with me. Mr. Thoyne is going my way.”

I accepted my dismissal smilingly and made a careful note in my mind of the man’s name. Anyone with whom Miss Kitty Clevedon was acquainted became a person of interest worth knowing. On my way to Stone Hollow I met Dr. Crawford, a Scot, rough of tongue and occasionally almost brutal in manner; but he was implicitly trusted by the Dale folk, who regarded suavity and gentleness with suspicion, and politeness as a form of hypocrisy. He had come to them from a country even wilder and sterner than their own, and was thus able to fit in with their moods and to understand their temperament, which, to strangers, seemed to be compounded of a mixture of sullenness and stupidity. He was one of the very few people in the Dale with whom I had struck up any sort of intimacy, possibly because he had been my late aunt’s medical attendant and a witness to the will that had given me Stone Hollow.

“Do you happen to know a man named Thoyne?” I asked after a few preliminary remarks.

“Yes; don’t you know him?”

“Am I supposed to? Is he one of those persons whom not to know is proof of one’s own insignificance?”