The Night of the Storm

Chapter I.—The Crime-4

“What did the surgeon say?”

“Corroborated all Dr. Athol had said. Death had been instantaneous, and it was undoubtedly a .22 bullet that had killed him.” The Superintendent shook his head. “Now comes a very mystifying thing for, quite in the dark as to the motive for the murder, as a matter of routine we proceeded to get all the fingerprints that were in the room.”

He paused here so long that Stone began to become impatient. “Get along, man,” he said sharply. “You found——”

“None at all,” exclaimed the Superintendent, “or practically none! Just a few of the dead man's upon the arms of the chair in which he was sitting, but none anywhere else.” He threw out his hands. “None where we should have expected to find them. None upon the knobs of the desk drawers, none upon the desk itself, none upon the door of the safe and none even upon either the outside or inside handles of the door.”

“Curious!” nodded Stone thoughtfully. “Very curious!”

The Superintendent went on. “Our expert said he could not remember finding so few in a tenanted room, and the only explanation I can put forward there is that furnished by the housekeeper. She says Toller had hardly used the office at all that day, having come into this town very early upon some income tax business connected with the estate, and returning just in time for his evening meal, after seven o'clock.”

“But what was he doing when he was killed?” asked Carter.

“Leaning back in an armchair and either asleep, or else smoking his pipe—we picked one up on the floor close near—and looking through a catalogue of motor cars that we found upon his lap. This catalogue, we learnt later, he had obtained from a firm in Colchester. It was fouled with blood.”

“And the search in the office yielded nothing, you say,” remarked Stone.

“Nothing of any service,” was the reply, “except as I have already told you, that from the number of pictures of girls that we found in the desk he must have been very interested in the other s*x. There are eight drawers to the desk, and four he used for the estate and four for himself. They were all closed, because the roll-top of the desk was down, likewise the safe was locked, and the keys were in his pocket. Nothing apparently had been disturbed.”

“But about these pictures of girls?” asked Carter. “Whose were they?”

“Oh, film stars, actresses, girls in beauty competitions and girls in bathing costumes. They had all been cut out of newspapers and magazines. As for the other private things, they were a lawyer's letters in relation to his wife's separation, bills from tradesmen”—the Superintendent nodded impressively—“he owed a devilish lot of money and seemed to have been living greatly beyond his means, for there were three letters from firms in this town threatening summonses, and one from a money-lender who was pressing him for the p*****t of thirty-odd pounds. Then there were a number of racing programmes.”

“But no letters from any woman?” asked Stone.

“No, and when subsequently, we came to make enquiries about his private life, we could learn nothing, although”—the Superintendent nodded again here—“there's undoubtedly a lot to learn, for nearly every week-end of late it had been his custom to go away on his motor cycle, but to where, no one knows.”

“Were his accounts all right?”

“Quite, and he had little chance of going crook there, for every fortnight an accountant from this town, one of the girls' trustees, used to go down to check them up. This chap, by the by, gives the murdered man a most excellent character.”

“And you say you can gather no evidence of the slightest friendship existing between him and any of these Brabazon-Fane girls?” asked Stone.

“None whatever, and I cannot discover either that any of them had ever set eyes on him before he came there as agent. We have not been able to get in touch with his wife, but we are assured by the lawyer who acted for her in the separation agreement against Toller that she is now somewhere in America. The accountant, too, tells me the General engaged Toller through some agency, but he doesn't know which agency it was.”

“But did the girls have nothing at all to do with him?” asked Stone. “If he were well-dressed, educated and good-looking, as you say, did they never ask him up to the Priory to a meal or a game of tennis?” He looked puzzled. “It doesn't seem natural to me, for women are women all the world over, and a handsome man always appeals.”

“Well, outwardly, it didn't here,” replied the Superintendent, “for they had nothing at all to do with him except in a purely business way, and then it was only Miss Beatrice whom he saw. He had been rather hard upon certain of the tenants lately and had threatened to turn them out, because they were behind with the p*****t of their rents, and I have learnt they had appealed direct to her for leniency.”

“Then he wasn't too popular with the tenants?” queried Carter.

“No, but then agents never are, as all the dirty work falls upon them.”

“But are they a cold and passionless lot, these Brabazon-Fane girls?” asked Stone after a moment's silence.

The Superintendent laughed. “Not a bit of it. Eva's a desperate little flirt, if ever I saw one. She's engaged to a barrister in the city but, with all her rudeness to me, tilts up her chin provokingly to make me feel that, after all, I'm only a man. Then Lady Mentone—they call her Billy among themselves—can make herself most fascinating if she wants to, and Beatrice—I am inclined to like her best of the three—for all her nun-like face, somehow gives me the impression that she could be very affectionate.” He nodded. “By-the-by, three years back this sister was upon the point of being married to the Honorable Ian James, but he was killed in a motor accident and now she is being paid a lot of attention by the rector of Stratford St. Mary, a middle-aged widower.” He screwed up his face thoughtfully. “In passing, I should be more inclined to regard this girl, than either of the other two, as the killer, for with all her gentleness she seems to have a most decisive determination of character.”

A short silence followed and then Stone remarked frowningly. “Well, if they have dispositions such as you say, why again, I ask, did they keep the agent at such a distance? I contend it wasn't natural, and there must have been a reason for it.”

The Superintendent considered. “Well, they are very proud,” he replied after a few moments, “and I think it was simply because the man was employed by them and that therefore they held him to be in a socially inferior position.”

“Have you got a photograph of him?” asked Carter.

“We haven't, but they have one up at the Priory, in a flashlight photo taken of all the guests at the ball, the night before he was murdered. He comes out very well, too.” He grinned suddenly. “Oh, yes. I have evidence of intimacy of a kind, for that night he danced once with Beatrice and Eva, and twice with Lady Mentone. We saw that from the dance programme we came upon, in one of his drawers.”

“Oh! he had two dances with Lady Mentone, did he?” commented Stone. “Hum! there may be something in that.”

Again a short silence followed and then Carter remarked slowly. “Then we are to take it that your whole case against one of these girls depends upon that clicking of the door the butler heard, and if it were not for that, you would never have thought of them?”

“Exactly,” replied the Superintendent, “for it was that clicking that started us at once upon their trail.”

“And there are no suspicions about anyone else in any other direction?” went on Carter.

“None that I regard of any value,” was the instant reply. The Superintendent shrugged his shoulders. “It is true there was a tale of two hikers who had been camping the previous night not far from the Priory grounds, and whose subsequent movements we have not been able to follow up. Also the gardener came to us the next afternoon with a handful of feathers which he found under some trees, as least a quarter of a mile distant from his cottage, and there was no doubt they had come recently from some pheasant. But we could be sure of no footmarks among the thick layer of leaves about where he said he had found them, and I gave the matter no further thought.” He laughed drily. “You see, the girls are all very well liked, and at once everyone wanted to shield them, whereas the agent, with his haughty manners and high ways of carrying on, was by no means popular.”

“But how did the gardener come to be looking among the trees so far away from his cottage?” asked Stone.

“Oh, he said a couple of sheep had wandered into the grounds and he had followed them to drive them out.”

No one spoke for a few moments and then Stone asked another question. “And the girls, of course, have had proper legal advice?”

“Oh! yes, plenty of it. I had a call here, the next day but one, from this future husband of Miss Eva. He is Jimmy Aker-Banks, the K.C., and he was very venomous. He tried to bully, and advised me to be more careful, or he didn't know what might happen to me. Of course, he wanted to make out that the whole idea of the girls having anything to do with the murder was absolutely preposterous.” The Superintendent laughed contemptuously. “I know he's a big man at the Bar, but I think, in fact I'm perfectly sure, I gave him something to ponder over after he'd gone away. Then Sir Charles Mentone called here, and wanted to poo-pooh the whole matter, too, but I tell you I gave him very short shrift, and told him pretty sharply that I was going to do my duty whatever the consequences.”

They chatted for a few minutes and then the burly Inspector Stone rose briskly to his feet. “Well, we'll go and have a talk with them now and see what we can find out.” He made a grimace. “It doesn't seem quite the thing for three big men to go and put the third degree upon three defenceless girls, but we'll have to do it. It appears we've got to trap one of them into some admission that will incriminate her and then”—he heaved a deep sigh—“but we'll talk about that later on.” He scowled at Inspector Carter. “Come on, you old ruffian. You always boast you can see through any woman, and now we'll try you out.” He grinned at the Superintendent. “But Bill here says they are so pretty that I almost hope you'll turn out to be a dud.”