The Mystery of the Moor

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 431, 13 August 1928, Page 5

The Mystery of the Moor

- By

J. S. Fletcher -

I» CHAPTER IX. —THE CAPETOWN POST-MARK. He turned off the path, and began to make his way to the head of the ravine through the scrub and undergrowth. Crole and I followed. It was stiff work, climbing and scrambling up there. At last we came out on a sort of plateau, overlooking the black depths in which Mazaroff’s body had been found. And there, a solitary figure, staring out over the widespread view of moor and fell, stood another old man. older it seemed than the crusty and ancient fellow we had just left —greyer, more gnarled and wrinkled, but erect and alert, and evidently quick of hearing as a boy, for at the first sound of our approach he turned sharply upon us with swift, appraising glances from eyes as clear and bright as a hawk’s. But this was no shepherd—we saw at once that he was a man of some standing, a gentleman. His somewhat wellworn clothes, of grey tweed and rather large pattern, of the sort affected by sporting men, were fashionably cut and carefully put on; there was a fine old cameo in his white neckcloth; his shooting boots had been scrupulously cleaned by a servant who knew how to do such things. Altogether he was a well-turned-out old chap, and his healthy colour and snow-white moustache added to his quite distinguished appearance. He stood watching us until we were close to him, then suddenly he gave Crole, as the eldest of our party, an understanding smile. “The place already attracts the curious, sir,” he observed half ironically; “odd —how quickly this sort of news spreads abroad.” “We have something more than idle curiosity to bring us here, sir,” retorted Crole, almost sharply; “we are the dead gentleman’s friends.” The old man nodded. Neither Crole’s words nor manner seemed to impress him in any way. “I suppose he’d have friends —yes,” tie muttered as if to himself. Then be glanced all of them over, and his keen inspection settled on me. “Is that the young gentleman who was with him at the inn?” he asked. “You’re quite right in your surmise, sir,” replied Crole. “May lin my turn ask—as you seem interested in the matter—if you can tell us anything to help us?” The old man smiled, and looked from one to the other. “Can I tell you anything to helo you?” he repeated. “Well, I can tell you of- something, but whether it will help you or not I don’t know. Yet it might. I heard a gun discharged hereabouts on the night this man was missed.” “That’s something,” said Crole; “and you were near, sir?” The old man turned and pointed down the moor toward Birnside. “You see the place there, a mere hamlet, Birnside?” he said; “I live there. It is, as you will observe, only two or three hundred yards away. That is my house on this edge of the Place—you see the gables?” “And about what time would that be?” inquired Crole.

“About what is usually my bedtime/’ replied the old fellow. “Ten o’clock. That night, however, I was up later than usual.” Crole looked at Maythorne. “That must have been the shot,” he said musingly. “I suppose, sir,” he went on, turning to our informant, “I suppose it would be a very unusual thing to hear a gun discharged on this moor at such an hour —ten o’clock at night?” But the old gentlemau smiled and shook his head. “Not at all,” he answered; “far from it. I often hear a stray shot in the night. Keepers, you know. Of course, that’s more likely to occur on clear or moonlit nights. This, however, was a rather dark night. But ” What further he was going to say Ido not know. Just then the policeman at the foot of the rocks, whom I had been watching while the talk was going on, and had seemed to be pottering about the bushes, looked up, and waved his hand excitedly. “Come down here!” he shouted. “I’ve found something—a gun.” This sudden announcement on the part of the policeman occasioned a general start of surprise. But it went further in the case of the old gentleman. He let out an exclamation which seemed to indicate absolute astonishment. “A gun!” he said. “Impossible!” I saw Maythorne glance at him—a shrewd, questioning glance, as if he wondered what the old fellow meant. But he said nothing, nor did Crole — we all began to descend the rocks to the dense undergrowth amidst which the policeman stood. He was gingerly handling a sporting gun, and as we drew up to him, he nodded toward a clump of overgrown gorse. “Shoved in beneath that!” he exclaimed. “That’s where it was. There was a glint of the sun on the barrels, that’s how I came to clap my eyes on it. But rusted, here and there —that’s along of the dews.” Maythorne silently held out a hand, and the policeman, after a remark about the danger of playing with firearms, passed the gun over to him. He opened the breech—there were two cartridges in the barrels; one, in the choke-bore barrel, had been discharged. Maythorne glanced at Crole. “Odd!” he said. “Why didn’t he use the right-hand barrel?” The old gentleman, who seemed to be fascinated by the sight of a weapon that had doubtless been used by a murderer, laughed a little. “If that’s the gun that was used to shoot this young gentleman’s elderly companion,” he remarked, “as I, personally, have no doubt it was, there’s a good reason why the murderer used the left-hand barrel. Perhaps,” he added, lookly slyly at Maythorne, “you’re not a shooting man, sir? —if not, I may tell you that the left-hand barrel of a fowling-piece is always narrowed in the bore as it approaches the muzzle; the notion, of course, is that the shot, or discharge, is concentrated rather than diffused. If a man wanted to shoot another man dead, at close quarters, as in this case, he’d naturally use the choke-

bore barrel in preference to the other.” “Much obliged to you, sir,” replied Maythorne. “What you say inclines me to a definite conclusion —that the murderer was a man who was thoroughly accustomed to the use of guns of this sort, and that the murder was committed in cold blood —shall we say of malice aforethought?” “I think you might safely say that,” answered the old gentleman, with another sly smile. “Yes, yes—of malice aforethought—excellent term! Well! —you appear to be accumulating evidence.” Then, with a polite nod, he turned and went off, climbing the rocks and high ground very nimbly for so old a man. Maythorne watched him for a minute or so; then glanced at the policeman. “Who is that old gentleman?” he asked. “That’s Mr. Hassendeane, of Birnside House, sir,” replied the policeman. “Though he’s generally called Mr. Wattie —Christian name’s Walter. Old as he is, sir, it’s not so many years since his father, old Squire Hassendeane, died, and as he was always known as Mr. Wattie while the old man lived it’s stuck to him d’you see, sir?” “I see,” said Maythorne. He was still handling the gun, and presently he drew Crole’s attention and mine to a name and address engraved on a plate let into the stock: J. Musgrave, Woodcock Inn, Marrasdale. “This is the landlord’s missing property, sure enough,” he remarked. Again he turned to the policeman. “Didn’t you say you were expecting some of your superior officers along here?” he asked. “Sergeant Manners said as how he was going to bring the inspector and the chief constable along,” answered the policeman. “I was to stay here, on guard, till they came. And I wish they’d come, for it’s getting to my dinner-time.” “Take care of that till -they do come,” said Maythorne, handing back the gun. “Show them exactly where you found it, and draw their attention to the fact that one cartridge has been used and that there’s a live one still left in the right-hand barrel. Tell them, if you like, that you have already shown it to Mr. Holt and his friends —they’ll know whom you mean.” We left Reiver’s Den then, and went back across the moor. Crole seemed inclined to discuss things, but Maythorne said little, though as soon