The Mystery of the Moor

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 449, 3 September 1928, Page 5

The Mystery of the Moor

By

J. S. Fletcher

CHAPTER XXVII.—ACCUSED! “It’s not necessary/* remarked Manners. “I know the man well enough. Bownas—reporter, of the ‘Tweed and Border Gazette* at Gilchester. And I’d like to know what he was doing here.” “What was he doing at Short’s HioteL?” suggested Maythorne. “That’s more like it, Manners! But that’s obvious —he was after Mrs. Elphinstone. He followed her, too, when she went out. Where? Now, then, did she, and her two companions, come to this quarter of the town? If they did—why? And where are they?” ‘*Let’s go back to the grocer’s,” said Corker dale. We went out again into the gloomy road. The under hall-porter, having done what was required of him, was anxious to go back to the hotel. Maythorne sent him off in a taxi-cab; the rest of us returned to Kilthwaite’s shop. Maythorne and I walked side hy side, at first in silence. “What do you make of this, Maythorne?” I asked at last. “God knows!** he answered. “It seems evident that the poor fellow we’ve just seen followed the Elphinstones—Mrs. Elphinstone, of course — to London, tracked them to the hotel, went after Mrs. Elphinstone when she went out that night, but as to the rest— ’* “Do- you think he followed them — here” I suggested. “If so, what could they want in this neighbourhood?” “Shabby and sordid enough for anything, hereabouts, isn’t it?” he answered, with a shrug of his shoulders. “Again I say—who knows?: —who knows anything? Let’s have a look *t the place where he was found, however—we may get some idea of something.” The grocer took us through his shop into his backyard. It was a dismal Place, all the more dismal because that was an unusually fine spring evening. It seemed to be a sort of dumping ground for boxes, barrels, chests, old tins, crates —all the refuse a chandlery shop, and it was of some extent, running from the back °£ the premises to a high wall in which there was a crazy door. “Here’s where I found him,” whisIjered Kilthwaite, in a half-awe-struck whisper. “I wanted some planking °Ut of this pile of old wood; I pulled B °ihe aside, and there was a man’s 3-tin! And then—well, then I found the rest. I saw no signs of a strug--Ble. But/* he added, “some of your People who have been here already, r * Cockerdale, they say that there *J re clear indications that he’d been Jigged in here, across the yard, from the door there.” “What’s outside that door and the ? ” asked Corkerdale. We all went to look. There was a

narrow, stone-paved lane there, running from a side-street between the backs of the Harrow Road houses and those of some street or terrace set further back. It was fenced in by high walls for all its length; there were only two feeble gas lamps to light it; it was dark, silent —its very gloom seemed to suggest murder. “One of your men says there are bloodstains on the stones just there!” whispered the grocer. “Of course, you know, I never heard anything—and I’ve not heard, either, of anybody who did, so far.” We went hack to the shop and stood discussing the matter and its probabilities for some little time. Then the grocer’s telephone bell rang. He went to answer it, and from the box looked round at us. “If one of you gentlemen’s Mr. Maythorne/* he said, “he’s wanted. Maythorne crossed over and took up the receiver. A moment later he, too, turned on us. “From the under hall-porter!” he exclaimed. “Mrs. Elphinstone and Miss Merchison are back!” I had been pretty much of a passive spectator and observer up to that point, but as soon as Maythorne made his startling announcement I leapt into action. I was half-way to the shop-door before his last word had left his lips; he himself was scarcely less rapid of movement, and his hand was on my arm as I crossed the threshold. “Where are you going?” he exclaimed. “Where? Short’s, of course!” I answered. “Aren’t you?” “To be sure!” he said. “But—a moment. These other two had better come as well. And —a word with this grocer chap.” I waited impatiently outside the shop until the three men joined me. We had some little difficulty in finding a taxi-cab; they were not plentiful in that dreary quarter; when at last we had packed ourselves into one I chafed all the time its driver was running down to a more palatable neighbourhood. My three companions had relapsed into silence; each seemed to be following some train of thought of his own. Nobody spoke, indeed, until we were close to Short’s Hotel; then Manners suddenly gave voice to what he was evidently thinking. “That poor fellow Bownas must have come up to London by the same Toasting vour toes at the fire, And warming your nose with your pipe: Is a pastime of which you don’t tire (Plus a good book with excellent type). Cold evenings have pleasures. I’m sure. But colds, coughs, and flu they have Don’t fail to secure Woods’ Great Peppermine Cure, .. c - Is ©tiling finer is under the sun,

train that the Elphinstones" came in!” he said, in a tone of a man who. thinks he has made a startling discovery. “Evidently!” remarked Maythorne, In his direct manner. “Evidently! since he presented himself at their hotel very soon after they got there.” “What I meant,” said Manners, “was this —if he did, as he must have done, he was tracking them —or someone of them.” “That, too, seems evident,” rejoined Maythorne. “I should say he was! Especially as he followed the three women when they went out!” “Why?” asked Manners. “Why? That’s what licks me!” There was a brief silence on that. Then Corkerdale spoke. “Newspaper man, you say he was,” he remarked. “Reporter. Those chaps have v a trick of poking their noses into places and things where they’ve no right to be. Poachers, as it were. I’ve had more than one game of mine spoiled by that sort! Get it into their heads that it’s a fine thing to do a bit of detective work for their papers. Gets ’em credit with the editors. I should say this chap’s been going on a line of his own since that murder —and you see what it’s brought him to! Murdered, himself.” “Ah!” said Maythorne, with a touch of sarcasm that was lost on our companions. "I shouldn’t wonder if you’re right, Corkerdale. But what a pity we didn’t get on his line, too! .For, if he was murdered to silence him, you may bet your life he was on the right line. But here we are.” The under hall-porter hurried down the steps at Short’s and opened the door of our cab, glancing knowingly at Maythorne. “Came in just as I got back, sir,” he announced in an undertone. “Both of ’em! In a taxi. So I telephoned up there to you, at once.” “Good!” answered Maythorne. “But —only Mrs. Elphinstone and Miss Merchison? Not the maid?” “No, sir. Only the lady and her daughter. I think Mrs. Elphinstone’s ill, sir. There’s a doctor gone up.” “111, eh? Heard any particulars?” “No, sir. She went up in the lift all right—except that she looked very tired. But they sent out for a doctor, just after.” Maythorne turned to the two policemen. But before he could say anything, a woman in the uniform of a professional nurse came hurrying round the corner and sped up the steps into the hotel: we watched her accost the hall-porter who immediately took her to the lift. “The doctor’s evidently telephoned for a nurse,” observed Maythorne. “TJm—we can’t very well break in on illness.” But Corkerdale shook his head and his face grew inflexible. ' “Illness or no illness, Mr. Maythorne,” he said, “I’m going up! Things are a bit too thick, too serious. And there’s the young lady. She’ll know where her mother’s been and where they’ve come from. And—where’s

that other woman, the maid. We’ll go up, Manners/* Maythorne and I followed them. We went up to the floor on which the Elphinstones’ suite of rooms was situate. At the door Corkerdale paused and turned to me. “Mr. Holt knows the family,” he said in a suggestive whisper. “Go in, Mr. Holt, and just see how the land lies. We don’t want to 'intrude, you know, nor to make any bother, but we must have some explanation. Get the young lady to yourself and ” He broke off with a meaning nod at the door, and, anxious enough to see Sheila and to make sure that she was safe, I tapped at the panels and walked into the room. I saw Sheila at once; she was standing on one side of the hearth; Mr. Elphinstone, in his usual semi-distressed, semi-peplexed state, stood at the other; between them, his hat in his hapd, stood a tall, professional-looking man whom I at once set down as the doctor we had just heard of. He was speaking as I entered, and with a mere glance at me, he went on. ’ “ after a good night’s rest, quite all right, I think. But I will call again, Mr. Elphinstone, in a couple of hours, and perhaps give Mrs. Elphinstone a sleeping draught. Keep the nurse all night—she’ll save you a lot of trouble. I think that’s all at present.” He turned and made for the door, and as I was still close by it, I opened it for him, let him out, and shut it on him, at the same time slipping the latch—those three outside were not coming in until I was sure of something. I turned: Sheila was already advancing toward me. “You’re all right?” I said eagerly. “Safe?” “Safe —yes!” she answered-. “All right, too. But—everything else is all wrong! Maythorne?—where is he?” “Outside,” I said. “The police, too! Two of them—Corkerdale and Manners. Are they to come in?” Mr. Elphinstone had overheard all this; he came forward. “Oh, dear, dear!” he exclaimed querulbusly. “I really do think, Sheila, that we can’t have these people in! Your mother comes back and collapses—we have to send for a doctor and a nurse—l myself had no explanation of your mysterious goingson—disappearance and all that, and—really ” “We’ve got to see the police at once!” interrupted Sheila. “Let them in, Mervyn. You’ll hear everything that I say to them,” she added, turning to Mr. Elphinstone. “There mustn’t be any delay, either! Open the door!” I thrust back the latch and threw the door open—the three men outside came in, wonderingly. The two policemen, thus admitted, appeared to lose their tongues, but Maythorne, after a first keen glance at Sheila, smiled. “I think you’re none the worse for your adventures. Miss Merchison,” he said. “I hope Mrs. Elphinstone is not seriously the worse, either?”

“My mother’s had a sort of collapse after she came in, replied Sheila. “The doctor says she will be all right after a .night’s rest. Sit down, all of you, if you please—l want to talk to you,” she continued, abruptly. “You’ve all been wondering where my mother, and Alison Murdoch, and myself went, and where we’ve been since, haven't you?” “A good deal of search has been made for you, Miss,” observed Corkerdale, finding his tongue. “Going on now, it is, too! What happened, if I may ask?” Sheila looked at Maythorne and from him to me. “Happened?” she answered. “My mother and I were kidnapped!” Mr. Elphinstone groaned—but there was a note of triumph in his voice. “I said so! —I said so!” he exclaimed. “I suggested it —it occurred to me. But he ——” here he pointed to and wagged his forefinger at Maythorne —“I could see he didn’t believe it —and Crole, the lawyer, said it wasn’t possible. To be sure! —kidnapped! I knew it—felt it!” “By whom were you kidnapped, Miss Merchison” asked Maythorne quietly. Sheila unconsciously lowered her voice as she bent forward to answer. “Alison Murdoch!” she replied. “And —where is Alison Murdoch?” continued Maythorne. “But—l suppose you don’t know!” “No!” answered Sheila. “I don’t know!” Maythorne nodded at the door of the bedroom. “Does Mrs. Elphinstone know?” “No!—no more than I do! Disappeared, of course.” Corkerdale cleared his throat—the sound suggested that he thought it was high time he came in. “What I’d wish, Mr. Maythorne,” he said, “ that is, Sergeant Manners and myself—would be if the young lady would just tell us what happened after she and her mother and this woman left the hotel three nights ago. Seems to me we want a consecutive narrative, as it were. Then ” “I’m going to tell you,” interrupted Sheila. “But I shall have to begin before that. I must begin where Mr. Maythorne and Mr. Holt came to Miss Apperley’s flat that evening—the even-

ing that my mother arrived here. After you two had gone,” she continued, turning to Maythorne and me, ‘‘l thought a lot —a tremendous lot—about the whole business. I was very uneasy about everything—the will the general situation. To tell you the truth, I felt that if things were going to remain where they were I should come perilously near to suspicion of my own mother. So ” Mr. Elphinstone smote his knees with his open palms and groaned audibly. But Sheila gave him a glance and went on. “So, eventually, 1 said to Miss Apperley that I was going to Short’s, to have it out with my mother, if 1 could. I came here. I saw my mother in that bedroom.” “Alone?” asked Maythorne. “Alone! We had a sort of row at first. She was naturally furious with me first, for taking the will out of her possession; second, for running away to London with it and giving it to Mr. Holt. But- in the end she calmed down, and eventually, when -we had restored amicable relations between ourselves, she told me that I need not have been so hasty, for it w T as her full intention to send the will, either to Mr. Postlethwaite, who had prepared it, or to Mr. Crole, the very next day, with an account of how it had come into her possession.” “I told you—l told you!” exclaimed Mr. Elphinstone, triumphantly. “I knew there would be a proper and full explanation!” “How had the will come into Mrs. Elphinstone’s possession?” asked Maythorne. “In this way,” replied Sheila. “I told you and Mr. Holt that my mother was out late in the evening for tw-o evenings in succession, and that on

the second evening I stole downstairs on hearing her come in, and unperceived by her, saw her examining a document which I afterwards discovered to be the will. Her explanation is that on coming in that night she found one of the French windows in the library open, and on the carpet, just within, an envelope containing the will! She had just picked this up and was examining it when I saw her.” “To be sure! —to be sure!” muttered Mr. Elphinstone. “Perfectly clear! —perfectly! ” But the three listeners said nothing. Nor did their faces express anything. They exchanged glances, but the glances might have come, if such a thing were possible, from marble statues. “Proceed, if you please,” said Maythorne, quietly. “Well,” continued Sheila. “I then began to talk to my mother about various possibilities as to how the will bad come there. I pointed out that the possession of it, and her refusal to account for it and to reply to questions (all of which is due to her natural pride and obstinacy and dislike of being coerced by anyone), would make people, like you, for instance, suspicious about her. She cared very little about that, but we began to discuss the question of the identity of the murderer. For it seemed to me that whoever had stolen the will had previously murdered its maker! And eventually, and I think, accidentally. I told her about that cairngorm brooch which you showed me the other night.” “Ah!”- exclaimed Maythorne, with a sudden betrayal of his keen interest. “You did? Good —good! And ” “She immediately became excited, i She jumped to the conclusion that

you had picked it up at the scene of the murder.” “I did!” remarked Maythorne. “So she suspected, and sail that that, of course, was why you were taking care of it. Then she told me that, from my description, the brooch was one of two which Mr. Blphinstone had bought, years ago, in Scotland, and given to her. She had never worn either, as they were cumbrous and heavy. She still had one, but she had given the other away some time before.” “Aye, and 10 whom?” asked Maythorne, eagerly. . “To Alison Murdoch!” replied Sheila, giving us all a swift, enveloping glance. "And, of course, as soon as I heard that, I saw through the whole sordid business. Alison Murdoch was the guilty person! She had murdered and robbed Mazarotf. She had dropped that brooch at Iteiver’s Den. She had thrown the will into the library at the Tower—the one fatal mistake she made for her own chances! —and . . . there she was, calmly eating her supper in the next room to that in which we were talking! And then I fetched Alison Murdoch in, and accused her—pointblank ! ” (To be Continued.)