The House on the Fens

CHAPTER I.--THE WAYS OF DEATH-3

"Was he close enough to the gates to see?" snapped Larose.

"Not twenty yards away, and he'd had to stop there all the time to look after the tools. He had only two lamps to watch, so there was no reason for him to go far away."

Larose forced a smile upon his face and spoke up boldly. "Look here," he said, "I don't pretend I don't know what you must all be fearing, but make your minds quite easy, I didn't do it, I never set eyes upon him when I went out to look for him. I never----"

"My dear fellow," broke in Sir George vehemently, so vehemently that it might almost have been that he spoke in great relief. "None of us suspect you for a moment. We are only thinking of the unhappy position in which you are placed. You had every reason to be angry with him for having insulted you."

"Of course, we don't suspect you," added Lady Almaine with equal vehemence. "It's unthinkable you would do anything like that. It would not be like you at all." She hesitated. "We wonder if it would be best not to say anything about what's happened. It might save----"

"No, no," interrupted Larose sternly, "there must not be the slightest attempt to keep anything back. Everything must be told fully. All of you have nothing to be afraid of and it can be only of me they will have any suspicions." He nodded confidently. "But suspicions are not proof, you know."

They talked on for a few minutes, with the front door wide open, and then a car came tearing up the drive. Out of it jumped four men, with one of them carrying a large-sized camera.

"I'm Inspector Flower," announced the first of them to Sir George as the latter came forward. "We were rung up from here," and Sir George, having made himself and Larose known, led the inspector and his assistants on to the balcony.

He told the inspector briefly that the dead man was a friend of his, Major Sampon, who along with seven other guests had been spending the evening with him, that about half past nine the major had gone out of the house, as they all thought for a few minutes, but had not returned, and then that, when all the other guests had been leaving, his dead body had been discovered where it now was. He mentioned also that the watchman outside in the road had seen no one enter or leave the drive since eight o'clock.

The inspector was a shrewd-looking, hard-faced man about forty, and he carried himself importantly. He and Larose had not met before, as he, the inspector, had but recently been transferred from the north of England. He had not long been a Divisional Inspector and was of a pushing and ambitious nature. Secretly, he was not too pleased to find the well-known one-time detective, Gilbert Larose, on the scene.

He just glanced at the body and then told the photographer to get busy.

"And you say nothing's been touched?" he asked Sir George sharply, "Everything's exactly as it was when you found him?"

"Exactly," replied Sir George. Then he added, "One of my guests who is a medical man thinks he must have been killed between eleven and half past."

"Our own surgeon will decide that," commented the inspector brusquely. "He will arrive in a few minutes."

The police surgeon drove up in his car even as the inspector was speaking and, quickly taking in everything upon the scene of the murder, with hardly a word of comment, commenced a brisk and business-like examination of the body.

"Been dead some time round about an hour and a half," he announced, "but can't say within twenty minutes or so. Killed by one fierce blow with a blunt instrument, probably a hammer. Both parietal bones deeply fractured at their junction. Died practically instantaneously." He looked at his watch. "Twelve thirty-six, so he was killed between eleven and eleven-thirty. I can't tell you anything more until after the autopsy."

"Did he call out, do you think?" asked the inspector.

"Certainly not after he was struck. No struggling of any kind. Most likely taken unawares from behind, when lying back in that chair. Then, of course, he was dragged here."

"What time will it suit you to do the autopsy?" asked the inspector.

"Two o'clock this afternoon," replied the police surgeon, and he was off again as speedily as he had come.

The finger-print expert started looking for finger-prints, and the dead man's pockets were turned out. A pocketbook was taken from the breast one and the inspector was about to put it to one side when Larose said sharply, "See what's inside, please. It's important."

The inspector frowned and half hesitated, but he complied with the request and opened the wallet. In one compartment there were five five-pound bank notes and, in the other, seven treasury ones, to the value of 6.

"Thank you," said Larose, and he frowned now in his turn.

The body was taken away in the ambulance and a search now started for the weapon which had killed the major, but nothing of a probable nature was found among the masonry tools lying close to the balustrade.

"But there's no hammer here," said Larose, "and yet there undoubtedly should be. We'd better search the grounds below. It may have been thrown there."

The sky was still unclouded and the moon made everything almost as bright as day. Eight cigarette butts were found on the ground just under that end of the balcony where the major had been killed, and one of the plainclothes men carefully wrapped them up.

"And collect the matches, too," said Larose, and the frowning inspector watched while ten were found and put away.

Then suddenly the third plain clothes man gave a shout and it was seen he was flashing his torch upon a big hammer lying by the edge of one of the flower beds.

It needed no second glance to determine it was the weapon used to commit the murder, for its head was bloody and there were hairs sticking to it.

It was carried carefully into the house to be examined for finger-prints and then the inspector turned to Sir George.

"Now a list, please," he said sharply, "of everyone who's in the house. I understand no one has gone out since dinner, so that will cover everybody who could have had anything to do with the crime. Then I'll be questioning you one by one."

A couple of minutes later, Sir George led the inspector and one of the plain clothes men into his study and, with the door closed behind them, proceeded to relate everything which had happened. The plain clothes man took shorthand notes of the conversation.

Mindful of what Larose had insisted, Sir George glossed over nothing, mentioning every happening of the evening connected with the major which he could recall.

The inspector's eyes opened wide when he heard of the unpleasantness at the card-table, and all that had followed after, but they opened wider still when he learnt that Larose had been out looking for the major about the very time the police surgeon said the latter had probably been killed. Then, when, with obvious reluctance, Sir George mentioned that Arnold Gauntry thought he had heard voices upon the verandah when Larose was outside, the inspector caught his breath sharply, but then immediately masked all expression from his face.

He immediately, however, asked Sir George about how long Larose had been absent from the room.

"A very short time," replied the baronet, "not more than three or four minutes at the outside."

A long silence followed and then the inspector said very quietly, "Thank you, Sir George. You have been very frank, although the whole matter must be most harrowing to you. Now I think I'd better see Mr. Gauntry next if you will please send him in to me."

Then when Sir George had left the room, the inspector leant back in his chair and tried to collect his excited thoughts. Incredible though it was, it seemed as if this one-time Chief Inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department must be the murderer. Grossly insulted at the card table and no doubt the insult being repeated again upon the verandah, with no premeditation, he had seized the first thing handy, the big mason's hammer, and struck the major that fierce blow. Then coming to his senses, with all the cool effrontery for which he had been notorious when at the Yard, he was now attempting to brazen things out, no doubt relying upon his reputation when in the C.I.D. to pull him through.

A feeling of exultation surged through the inspector. If he could bring home the murder to Gilbert Larose, with all the ensuing publicity, he, Thomas Flower, would be a made man!

Arnold Gauntry entered the room looking very quiet and subdued. The inspector was favourably impressed, being at once of opinion that he would make a reliable witness.

Gauntry told his story with no waste of words. Then the inspector asked, "And how did Mr. Larose seem to take it when Major Sampon insulted him?"

"Well, he didn't look pleased," replied Gauntry thoughtfully, "but then who would when he was told in front of everyone that he was aping the gentleman on his wife's money? It was a horrible thing to say."

"Did he lose his temper?"

"He didn't have time to because Sir George interfered and told the major to hold his tongue. Of course Mr. Larose looked very upset."

"Then, when, later in the evening, he went out, at your suggestion I understand, to look for the major, how long would you say he was gone?"

"Not very long," replied Gauntry. "Five or six minutes I should say."

"All that time?" queried the inspector.

"I think so," replied Gauntry, considering. Then he added quickly, "But, of course, that is only conjecture. It might have been less or it might have even been more."

"And how did he seem when he returned?"

"Quite all right, very little to say and very quiet as he had been all the evening since the unpleasantness with the major."

The inspector spoke carelessly. "And I understand from Sir George that when Mr. Larose was out of the room you heard voices out on the verandah?"

Gauntry hesitated, "We-ll, I certainly thought I did, but, of course, I may have been mistaken. You see, there was a lot of conversation going on in the drawing-room where we all were."

"But you thought you did?" insisted the inspector.

"Oh, yes, and I remarked upon it to Mr. Larose directly he came in. But he said there had been no one out there."

"Then to hear voices outside above the conversation that was going on in the room," suggested the inspector, "they must have been pretty loud, mustn't they?"

Gauntry looked uncomfortable. "I suppose so," he admitted reluctantly, "and it made me think the unpleasantness between Mr. Larose and the major had started again."

"And who else heard the voices beside yourself?"

Gauntry shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. Perhaps no one. At any rate, no one made any comment when Mr. Larose said I had been mistaken."

The inspector eyed him intently. "Did you know Major Sampon well?"

"Good gracious, no!" replied Gauntry. "I had never met him before to-night. Until I was introduced to him here I had never set eyes on him before."

"Well, did he strike you as being a bad-tempered man?" asked the inspector.

"No, on the contrary, he seemed very quiet and reserved. I took him to be a man who would show his feelings very little."

The inspector frowned. "Then in that case what made him flare up as suddenly as he did when you were all at that game of poker?"

Gauntry hesitated. "Well, no man likes to be held up as a cheat, now does he?"