The Mystery of the Moor

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 429, 10 August 1928, Page 5

The Mystery of the Moor

By

J. S. Fletcher

CHAPTER VII.—THE MEMORIAL TABLET The solicitor, a naturally observant man, jogged my elbow while we were yet some twenty or thirty yards away irom Sheila. "I lunched and dined with Mazaroff two or three times,” he said in a low voice. “And I learned a bit about him. Aren't you aware, Mr. Holt, that he carried diamonds in his pockets—loose!—as if they'd been so many halfpence?” That gave me a genuine start of astonishment. “No, indeed!” I exclaimed. “I never saw him produce any diamonds—never!” Crole laughed—drily “I °nly hope he left them behind him in London, then,” he said. “But 1 doubt it, even if you didn’t see them. He d made the greater part of his fortune in that sort of thing, and I tell lou that he carried, loose on him, stones that looked to me to be worth “-no end! I remonstrated with him, out he only laughed. Now —ask May>borne there what he thinks —professionally.” Maythorne, who had been occupied ■n devoting himself to one of Mrs. -Musgrave’s very fine cold hams, smiled. I think that a man who carries oose diamonds in his pockets, and Pulls them out in public places, as you say Mazaroff did, is asking for trouble,” rh reDlar hed. “And the probability is mat he was followed here.” I never saw any suspicious oharcters here or anywhere else during ', r ,. ourny ■ “ I observed, dit ° U "’bbldu’t” said Maythorne, r ly. Then becoming gravely atten■'e, he added: “Just, give us the f, aCts up to now, Mr. Holt.

of all that had hapsoin from *he moment of Mazaroff’s k out alone on the moor to the yd' lns of kis m atilated body to the tini C ° C k *kat morning. And all the l e au undercurrent of something rim en , res °l v e and hesitation was s ning in my mind —should I tell the these two? Yet, I knew very j 1 taa t I should, and suddenly, maks _ sare that nobody would interrupt that them, word for word, of all ar between me and Maz°a on the second evening of our May at the Woodcock. hey were good listeners —and of , 60rt that gives absolute attention i« t ® a kes no comment until a story ■; told. But as soon as I had finished, . spoke, sharply and decisively, t believe all that,” he said. “I felt

| sure there was a queer mystery about Mazaroff. Well, there It is! And the next thing is, it’ll have to be told to Mrs. Elphinstone who is really Mrs. Merchison. And at once!” “The sooner the better” agreed Maythorne. “Because there are things by 'which he can be identified, that birth-mark, for instance.” “Yes, at once,” declared Crole. He may have died—probably has died—intestate. He made no mention to me of any will. If he has died intestate, and his identity as Merchison is established, then this lady and her daughter benefit, the daughter mainly, of course. Holt, you and I must go to his place —what is it, Marrisdale Tower? —immediately. A fine revelation!” “A job I don’t like,” I remarked. “No doubt—but there’ll be a lot to do that none of us will like before we’re through with this,” he said, with a grim smile. “Come, you and I will go, and leave Maythorne to his own devices. He’ll not be idle.” I presently led Crole across the moor in the direction of Marrasdale Tower, giving him on the way some account of the people he would meet there. We met one of them before we reached the gates—Sheila was just coming out, and I saw at once that she had heard the news. “The daughter, eh?” he -whispered. “Fine girl! pretty girl. Knows nothing, of course?” “Nothing,” I replied. Then, I, too, whispered: “You’ll remember that Marazoffi had a decided cast of the left eye? Yes —well, she has, too —the very slightest, scarcely noticeable, but there.” “Adds piquancy, sometimes,” he said, knowingly. “Well, the mother, first. Leave it all to me, Holt. I know how to manage these affairs. Professional experience, you know.”

I I was only too glad to leave everything to him, and I said so. But now !we were close to Sheila: she came up Ito me with genuine sympathy ex- ! pressed on her pretty face. “I’m so sorry to hear this bad news,” ! she said quickly. “I suppose it’s true .- —-we’ve only heard very little.” “True enough,” I answered. Then, as she glanced at my companion, I said: “This gentleman is Mr. Mazaroff’s solicitor —Mr. Crole. He’s just arrived from London, and he’s anxious to see Mrs. Elphinstone.” She showed no surprise at this; probably she thought that C-role wanted to ask some questions about the neighbourhood. She turned hack to the house, motioning us to follow. “Mother is somewhere about,” she remarked. “Mr. Elphinstone has gone to a magistrates’ meeting—he won’t be home until afternoon.” She led us through the gardens and into the house; we found Mrs. Elphinstone in the morning room, buried with letters and papers at her bureau. She gave us an unmistakably questioning look as we entered; it seemed, indeed, not too friendly, and I heard Crole make a little sound under his breath as if he realised an inimical atmosphere. But Sheila, after her fashion, relieved us by going straight to the point. “Mother!” she said. “It’s quite true about this unfortunate Mr. Mazaroff. He’s been found dead, on the moor, and this is his solicitor, Mr. Crole, from London, and he wants to see you.”

Mrs. Elphinstone stared at Crole as if slie liad just iieard that lie had come to ask for her daughter’s hand or some other equally outrageous thing. She was one of those women who can make people uncomfortable by simply staring at them, and nad she stared at me as she stared at Crole I should have turned and fled. But Crole remained quite at his ease, and his bow was as frigid as Mrs. Elphinstone’s manner. "Merely to be permitted to ask a few pertinent questions arising out of the death of my client,” he said. “I may mention, first, a fact of which perhaps neither of you is aware. Mr. Mazaroff was murdered!” This announcement produced different effects on its two hearers. Sheila made a low murmur of horrified astonishment; Mrs. Elphinstone gave Crole a quick glance. “Are you sure of that?” she asked. “That is the medical opinion, ma’am,” replied Crole, with another frigid bow. “I know of no reason to dispute it. My client was shot—dead.” Mrs. Elphinstone pointed a finger to chairs near her desk. “Won’t you sit down?” she said, with faint politeness. “You say you want to ask me some questions—pertinent questions? I really can’t conceive what they can be! T know nothing whatever about this poor man.” “I think you saw my late client the

other day?” suggested Crole, whom I had fully posted in every particular of our stay at the Woodcock. “He and Mr. Holt were standing at the garden gate of the inn when you and your daughter passed by.” “Oh, that!” exclaimed Mrs. Elphinstone. “Yes, I suppose I did see him —a tall, bearded man, wasn’t he? I just glanced at him.” “You didn’t recognise him, ma’am?” asked Crole, with a keen look. Mrs. Elphinstone gave her questioner a particularly freezing stare. “Recognise him?” she demanded haughtily. “Really—what do you mean?” I had been hoping that Crole would gradually approach the revelation which he had come to make—for some reason, vague enough, but still there, I did not want the truth blurting clean out suddenly before Sheila. But Crole had different views, and in the next instant he had expressed them. “What I mean, ma’am, is this,” he answered, bluntly. “The man whom you saw, though he has of late years called himself Salim Mazaroff, was the man whom you married some years ago—Andrew Merchison. A fact, ma’am!” I expected something, say, dramatic, to follow on this. But nothing happened —that is, nothing particular. Sheila’s lips opened a little in astonishment, and her eyes turned from Crole to her mother. As for Mrs. Elphinstoue, sitting bolt upright, very stern and dignified, at her desk, she might have been carved in stone for any change that came over her countenance. She looked at Crole as 'f she was seriously wondering whether he was an insolent liar or a crazy lunatic. Suddenly, and swiftly, a satirical, contemptuous smile showed itself round the corners of her finely-cut thin lips, and she rose quietly from her chair. “Follow me, if you please,” she said. We followed her, in silence—Crole first, Sheila and I in the rear. Sheila looked as if she wanted to speak to me; I purposely kept my face averted. Although Mrs. Elphinstone

was ahead of us, her presence was I there, and it was a bit too awe-inspir-ing for me —I had rather have faced a battalion of Huns: it seemed, somehow, as if she was leading Crole and myself to instant execution, or, at any rate, to incarceration in some adjacent dungeon. She marched us through two or three rooms, into the hall, out of the house, across the grounds, and to a doorway set in the east wail of the gardens. Opening this, she passed through; we followed, and found ourselves in the village churchyard, among ancient yew-trees and tapering cypresses. Straight ahead she went, looking neither to right nor left, and so through the porch of the church, and under its fine old Norman doorway into the shadowy nave. Marching up that to the chancel, she suddenly paused, pointed upward, and giving Crole a frowning look, spoke two words: “Look there!” We looked. There, on the north wall of the chancel was a plain, square tablet of Aberdeen granite, whereon were deeply incised and gilded a few words. In Memory of Andrew Merchison, Sometime Resident in this Parish. Drowned in Mombasa Bay, October 17, 1599. I glanced at Crole. His face was inscrutable. He merely looked at the tablet, read the inscription, and turned, with a nod, to Mrs. Elphinstone. “Now come back to the house,” she commanded. Once more we fell into line, following her. I was by this time filled with all sorts of doubts and perplexities. Had Mazaroff told me the truth? Was he some man posing as Andrew Merchison? Were there two men who had corresponding marks and blemishes? What did it all mean? And had these things anything to do with the murder? Mrs. Elphinstone marched us back to the house, and up the old oak staircase that led from the big hall. She went along one corridor after another until she came to a door. Selecting a key from a bunch that hung by a silver chain from her waist, she unlocked the door, and ushered us into a small room, wherein there was nothing but an old-fashioned bureau, a chair set before it, a book-case filled with old volumes, and a side-table, whereon lay a much-worn cabin trunk. She went straight to this and laid a hand on it. “Now.” she said, looking at Crole. “I am doing ■ naore than anyone has the right to ask me to do! I am only doing it to set at rest once and for all, the utterly ridicsulous idea that you mentioned when you came here—uninvited. You will please listen to me! —it is quite true that I married Andrew Merchison, when he and I were very young and foolish and headstrong. We did not get on. He made full provision for me; shared equally all he had with me, in fact,

and left me. I didn’t knew when he went, nor where he went; he left word that he was going to travel. Eight months later, this girl was born. I and my friends did our best to find him and make him acquainted with that fact; we failed. I never heard anything of him until the early part of the year. 1900, when I got a letter from the captain of a steamer which traded between Bombay and Durban. You shall read it.” (To be Continued)