The Night of the Storm

Chapter I.—The Crime-1

Chapter I.—The Crime“Yes, they are all three as pretty as pictures,” said the Superintendent, scowling, “but I'll stake my life one of them killed the man.” He spoke slowly and deliberately. “They come of the best stock in the land, by birth and breeding they should be above reproach, and yet it is as clear as daylight to me that one of them has stooped to a guilty passion, and then, for some reason turning upon her lover, has sent him into eternity with the callousness of a butcher slaughtering a sheep.”

“Very eloquently put, sir,” smiled the stout, fatherly-looking Detective-Inspector Stone, “and I'm sure you ought to have been a clergyman.” He seemed amused. “But you have just told us that everyone says that these girls always kept him at a distance, and that you haven't the slightest evidence that there was friendship between him and any of them!”

“And I haven't the evidence,” retorted the Superintendent warmly, “but that doesn't make me the less certain that one of them was the murderess, for if she is equal to meeting us in the calm and brazen way she is now doing, then depend upon it she was quite clever enough to have kept her goings-on hidden from everybody.”

“But why necessarily a guilty passion?” asked a third man, the lanky Detective-Inspector Carter, with a frown. “Two of the sisters are unmarried, you say!”

“But he wasn't,” replied the Superintendent dryly. “He was very much married and everybody knew it, for his wife brought him into court last year to get a separation.” He pursed up his lips. “And I've no doubt she could have got a divorce if she had wanted, for he was a gay dog, right enough, and c****d his eye at every pretty girl he saw. We found scores and scores of pictures of girls among his effects.”

“But not one of any of these three girls in the Priory?” asked Inspector Carter.

The Superintendent shook his head. “No, unfortunately, there was not one of any of them.” He slapped upon the desk before him. “But see how black everything looks against them.” He punctuated each sentence with his hand. “The man was shot just before half-past ten, and old Evans the gardener heard the rifle fired and called out to someone he saw running in the direction of the Priory! Then just after half-past ten, the butler heard the front door of the Priory being shut very stealthily and then the sounds of someone moving about in the hall. Then, not two minutes later, he saw that the rook rifle, which he swears was there earlier in the evening, was missing from its accustomed place, and the next morning my men found this very rifle, dropped by the murderer, not fifty yards from the dead man's bungalow, and it has since been proved that it fired the fatal bullet.” He laughed scornfully. “Just put two and two together, for there are only three individuals who can fulfil the two requirements of being able to get possession of that rifle and later, as the stealthy prowler, to be entering the house as one of its natural occupants for the night.” His voice was most emphatic. “Only one of those girls, I say.”

“But there are four servants and——” began Inspector Stone.

“All accounted for,” interrupted the Superintendent. “The butler and the three maids were together in the kitchen from before nine o'clock until they went up to their rooms just after half-past ten.” He shook his head vexatiously. “No, it was one of these three girls, without any doubt, but unhappily I can't bring it home to her. They are just sitting tight and persisting in their denials that they left the house and I can't prove to the contrary. I am up against a dead wall.”

“I noticed that the inquest was as short as you could make it,” said Stone.

“Yes, purely formal.” The Superintendent scowled. “We just proved the discovery of the body and the cause of death and then had it adjourned.”

Three men were seated in the room of the Superintendent of the Colchester police, Superintendent William Russell himself, and the two Detective-Inspectors from Scotland Yard, the latter among the shrewdest and most brainy officers in the Criminal Investigation Department, who had been sent to Colchester to give their assistance to the Essex police in the matter of the mysterious murder of Edwin Asher Toller of Stratford St. Mary.

A long silence followed, and then Inspector Stone produced a note-book and remarked briskly, “Well, go through it slowly again, Bill. We've got the general hang of things now and so shall be able to pick out what's important and what's not. We'll question you as you go along. Start from the beginning and give us more details. Tell us more, too, about all the parties concerned, apart from the actual murder.”

The Superintendent made a grimace as of faint protest, but then began in brisk and policeman-like tones——

“The village of Stratford St. Mary is about six miles from here. The Priory, at the far end, is the most important residence in the neighborhood, and attached to it is a considerable estate, extensive enough, at any rate, to necessitate an agent to look after its affairs. The place has been in the possession of the Brabazon-Fanes, who are one of the best county families round here, for hundreds of years, but I gather the estate is somewhat impoverished now and that its rent-bill is not anything like it used to be. The late General Brabazon-Fane, the last male of the line, died two years ago and the property descended to his three daughters Beatrice, Eva, and Margaret. Beatrice is the eldest, unmarried and twenty-eight. Then comes Eva, also unmarried, twenty-six, and finally, the youngest Margaret, Lady Mentone, twenty-five and married to Sir Charles Mentone, a director of the Orion line of steamers.” He sighed. “They are three lovely girls and noted for their good looks.”

“This Sir Charles Mentone is, of course, the member of Parliament,” commented Inspector Stone.

“Yes, for the Ashburton division of Devonshire and he's thirty years his wife's senior. There are no children as yet.” The Superintendent raised his eyebrows. “By-the-by, this girl, Lady Mentone, went on the stage when she was eighteen and there was a family quarrel, but when she married Sir Charles, five years ago, everything was made up and she's been a frequent visitor at the Priory ever since.”

“No mother living?” asked Inspector Stone.

The Superintendent shook his head. “No, she has been dead for many years.” He went on. “Well, Edwin Asher Toller was the bailiff or agent of the estate and had been so for the last three years. His salary was £6 a week. He was a good-looking, well-groomed man of thirty-five, of a decided personality and most capable in his work. It happened I had met him, personally, in connection with some poachers he was prosecuting then on behalf of the estate.”

“How long ago?” asked the other Inspector, Carter.

“About two months. The last week in April, if I remember rightly.”

“And what opinion did you form of him then,” asked Stone, “apart from his being so capable, as you say?”

“For one thing, that he ought to have been in a much better position than he was at his time of life, as he impressed me as being a very knowledgeable and travelled man of the world.” The Superintendent shook his head. “Yet I didn't take to him, for he seemed a bit deep, and you could never tell exactly what was in his mind. He thought a deuced lot of himself, too. Moreover, he was very hard, and pressed for sharp punishment upon those two poor devils who had only been caught snaring a few hares.”

The Superintendent paused, but, no further question being asked, went on. “Well, the Priory is situated in about forty acres of walled grounds and the agent lived in a small modern bungalow close to the wall, about three hundred yards distant from the main building. He was looked after by an elderly housekeeper who has been in the Brabazon-Fane service for more than thirty years. Upon the night of the murder, on Tuesday, four days ago, she was absent from the bungalow, having come in here for a concert at the assembly rooms, and was not expected back until about half-past eleven, when it was known she would return by the village bus.”

“Did she go to the concert alone?” asked Carter.

“No, Mrs. Evans, the wife of the Priory gardener was with her, and the cook would have accompanied them, too, had she not been feeling tired after the annual tenants' ball which had been held the previous night, and decided to stay at home. Well, just before half-past ten, the gardener, who was sitting up for his wife, and whose cottage is only about 100 yards distant from the agent's bungalow, heard the sharp crack of a rifle fired evidently not far away, and, immediately stepping to his front door, was just in time to see—there was a bit of a moon up to then—a figure darting among some rhododendron bushes. Thinking it was a poacher after the pheasants, which are very tame all round the Priory and often roost among the trees within the grounds, he shouted to the runner to stop, but of course the party only went the faster, and being old and rheumaticky, the gardener was unable to give chase, and so after waiting a minute or two, and seeing and hearing nothing more, he returned indoors.”

“But can he give no description of the person he saw?” asked Stone.

“Not the slightest. He just saw someone running and that was all. His sight's not too good and he's rather stupid, too. He's over seventy.”

“And we can be perfectly exact about the time?”

“Yes, we can be absolutely certain there, for he heard the clock of the village church strike the half-hour just as he came out of his door.” The Superintendent became most impressive. “And now the Priory butler, Samuel Chime, comes into the picture, and he, too, heard the half-hour strike. He was sitting in the kitchen then with the maids, and, an old army man, and, most precise in his habits, he rose up at once and ordered them to bed. He went into his pantry to get a drink of water and he said it couldn't have been two minutes after the clock had struck, when, just as he was raising the tumbler to his lips, he thought he heard the faint click of the inner door of the hall being shut, followed by the sound of some faint movement in the hall. He says he paused and stood still to listen, but, hearing nothing more, he imagined he must have been mistaken, because he knew all the young ladies had gone up to their rooms an hour and more before. Still, he told us that. Nevertheless he went into all the four rooms leading out of the hall and, switching on the lights, had a good look round. Then, he says, he locked and bolted the outer hall door and was in the very act of switching off the lights there, when he noticed that a little rook-rifle was missing from its accustomed place upon the wall, just above where he was standing.”

“A rook-rifle kept in the hall!” exclaimed Stone.

“Yes, because it is a treasured memento of the old General who, during the last years of his life used to potter about with it in the grounds, to shoot at any birds eating his fruit.”

“But it wasn't kept loaded, of course?” asked Stone.

“No, but there was a broken box of cartridges close handy in the drawer of the umbrella stand. The butler was a little surprised about the rifle not being there, but thought that perhaps one of the young ladies might have taken it to polish it—they were the only ones ever to touch it—and had omitted to put it back. At any rate he didn't then associate its absence with the clicking of the door that he had heard, and at once dismissing the matter from his mind, he switched off the lights and took himself off to bed.”

The Superintendent glanced down at a paper upon his desk and went on. “Then nothing more happened until twenty minutes past eleven when the agent's housekeeper, Sarah Bowman, came back from the concert. She had been dropped by the village bus, along with the gardener's wife, just outside the Priory grounds and, bidding good-night to her companion, proceeded to walk across a short stretch of lawn to the bungalow, less than a hundred yards away. Then, having to pass before the window of Toller's office, she saw that the light was on, the window open, and that the blind had not been drawn. I must tell you here that it was a close and sultry night, with a storm threatening, and not a breath of air stirring. Well, she glanced in, going by, and was about to say good-night, when to her horror she saw Toller in the big armchair only a few feet from the window, lying back in an unnatural pose, with his head bent down and his face covered in blood. Naturally she was terrified, and at once called out to him, and receiving no answer, she rushed into the bungalow and into his room.”