The Mystery of Ryeburn Manor

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 896, 13 February 1930, Page 5

The Mystery of Ryeburn Manor

By

JOHN LAURENCE

Author of “The Sign of the Double Cross Inn,” etc.

NEW READERS BEGIN HERE . The ringing of a. burglar alarm in a house in a quiet Kensington road was the iirst event which led to the unravelling °f the mysteries of Ryeburn Manor. .Robert Harding lived in a flat next door to the house where the alarm awoke the neighbourhood, and the incessant clanging of the bell roused him to investigate the affair. From a constable who ia watching the house he learns that the property is owned by a Mr. -James Lee, a wealthy I merchant, who also possesses a country I residence, Ryeburn Manor, Sussex. Mr. I Lee is at present at Ryeburn Manor, and one servant, Simnionds, a gardener, lias been left in charge of the London house. The police are unable to enter the premises until keys are obtained, and they suggest to Harding that he should obtain access over the roof from his flat. N * * * Harding goes to the roof of *he buildI mg and encounters a young girl who is emerging from the roof-door of the adjacent house. She is in a state of great agitation. She says she was alone in the house next door and, hearing the alarm, was frightened and escaped bv way of the roof. Harding, impressed by the girl’s beauty and distress, takes her into his flat u hen he mentions the possibility of the police questioning her, she begs his help in keeping them away. He leaves her in his flat while he goes to tell the police that he has found a way of reaching the house next door through his. roof. When he returns he discovers that the- girl has gone. A few minutes later a .sergeant of police calls on him to tell him that a murder has been committed in the house next door. The murdered man is Simmons. the resident servant of James Lee. Harding is questioned about the night’s happenings, but, assured ,that the girl he met on the roof had no connection with the crime, he keeps silence about her appearance. CHAPTER 11. (Continued.) “Anything missing V* he asked. “Can’t say yet, till Lee and his wife come back. Nothing appears to bo missing. We found one of the bottom windows at the back open. Though that is not what started the alarm off. The constable is certain all the windows were fastened when he first investigated. I think he is right. I i believe it was the sudden sounding |of the alarm which sent the murderer through the window/’ Harding breathed freely again. If Vidler thought that he would not be looking round for a slim blue-eyed girl who had fled through the roof. He ventured a suggestion. “Perhaps the burglar opened the window and started the alarm. Hearing it go off he might have shut it hurriedly, hoping it would stop.” “That’s a possibility,” agreed the detective. “It’s what a timid burglar might do—someone not accustomed to burglary, say.” “The sergeant told me a poker had been used,” said Harding, j “Yes, I thought we might get a finger-print from it, but it was either wiped o’ gloves were used.” Again Harding’s mind turned back to the girl in the loft, to that moment when he flashed the beam of his torch on her trembling figure, saw her gloved band clinging desperately to The w oo len upright in the roof to save her from falling. i “On first principles it would appear I that the murder was unpremeditated,” ! observed the detective. “The use of the poker seems to show that.” “The man—” began Harding. “It might have been a woman,” interrupted Vidler, rubbing his eyelid. Harding stared sharply at the detective. “A woman! Surely no woman could hit h*ar i enough to kill?’£ , _ Ji ‘

“These modern young women have wrists o£ steel," commented the other. ‘Tver thought what it means to use a 14oz racket every day, and bang a ball backw-ard and forward across a net? I shouldn't like to be the wrong end of a poker wielded by even a small woman if she were •angry. No, no, Harding, I’m not jumping to conclusions’ yet. that it must have been a man. The dead man might have had a girl. Welt, I must be getting along. Awfully obliged ahd all that for the time you have given me. I’ve got a night’s work before me, I’m afraid. Must strike while the trail's fresh.” TELL-TALE FOOTPRINTS. “Well, he didn't get much out of nre, thank Heaven!” reflected Harding, as the door closed behind the other. “Phew! I didn’t know dodging the truth was so difficult.” Although it was past midnight he did, not feel in the mood to hurry to bed. “Fancy old D.V. being on the trail!” ho ruminated, as he sucked at his pipe. “He gave me quite a shock when he suggested it might he a woman. Not that I think he really believes it. She didn’t do it. She’s not the kind to murder anybody.” The fact was that Robert Harding had encircled the unknown girl with a ring of romance, and in his eyes she was not capable of doing any wrong. One minute he cursed himself for a fool for the attitude he had taken—an attitude from which it was almost impossible to withdraw after his interview with Inspector Vidler, and the next swore roundly that all the police in the world would not make him say anything about' the girl on the roof. She seemed such a helpless little shrinking figure as she stood in the dark, trembling, though he was forced to admit that she must have had an immense amount of courage to attempt that way of leaving the house. She had said she had put on her ha*- and gloves and had fled because she was frightened when the alarm went off. She had said, too, that she was alone in the house. Was she speaking the truth, he; wondered? Had she been alone in the house in the first place, and had failed to hear the servant’s return? Or had she found his dead body, and fled in sheer i terror, with that alarm hell ringing in her ears? Whatever was the truth , of the matter, it did not occur to him for one moment that she had had that poker in her gloved hand when the fatal blow was struck. Then there -came to his mind the dust in the loft, the footprints which must have been left in the dust, her footprints which would betray her presence to a skilled man like Vidler. Sooner or later he would investigate the way over the roofs, if only in the ordinary course of routine, despite his apparent conviction that the murderer had escaped through ! one of the bottom window’s. With that thought Harding got out of his chair

hurriedly. These footprints must be wiped out. As he passed Jennings’s door he heard a steady snoring sound which brought a smile to his lips. Jennings was safe for a while. It would take only a few minutes to go up and scatter the clues in the dust. The trapdoor was still open, and as he pulled himself up into the loft again Harding was conscious of a curious smell which he had not noticed before—a familiar smell, too, which, however, he was not able to identify. Deliberately he scraped his feet along' the joists as he crossed them slowly to the door leading to the roof. That, too, was open, and he put out his hand to close it. “Who’s there?” A white shirt front gleamed in the darkness, and the torch in Harding’s hand flickered. “That you, Vidler?” he forced himself to say. “I suddenly remembered this door was probably open and thought I’d better holt it, and the trapdoor. I didn’t expect you to be prowling up here tonight or I would have asked you to close them.” “I was going to shut them myself later,” said the inspector. “We've just finished a few flashlight photographs. Can’t you smell the magnesium?” “Photographs?” he questioned. “An ideal place for footprints,” said the inspector, cheerfully. “This undisturbed dust. When they’re developed, the photographs ought to show something. You’d better be getting along to bed, my friend, or else you’ll be letting this murder get on your nerves.” And as Robert Harding lay in bed half an hour later, staring at the ceiling, he wondered very much if the events of the night had not already got on his perves. If they hadn’t, then certainly the unexpected appearance of Inspector Vidler had, as well as his announcement that the police had forestalled him in his attempts to wipe out the Incriminating evidence against the little girl with the blue eyes. Frankly, Robert Harding was beginning to worry, for now he had got something very definite to worry about. D.V. EXPOUNDS The Yard never sleeps, and when murder is afoot it works with feverish energy day and night in pursuit of the murderer, while the latter is hearing uneasily in his sleep the baying of the hounds of the law. D.V., “God-willing” Vidler, was not making any idle boast, when he had told Robert Harding he was going to make a night of it. Nor was he the only one in a high position at the Yard to spend the greater part of the night at 90 Ditchling Road, West Kensington. At 3 o’clock in the morning there were seated in the dining room of that house D.V. himself, the Chief Commissioner, Sir Arthur Hamblen, and Superintendent John Markham, whose neatly-trimmed beard gave him the appearance of a Frenchman. “You are pleased with yourself, D.V., dragging us out c f bed at this ungodly hour,” said the Chief Commissioner, lighting a cigar. His subordinate chuckled gleefully. “An hour now is worth two hours tomorrow. After all, I’ve ruined a perfectly good dress-shirt, and the Lord knows if I’ll ever get the dust out of this suit. It’s the first time I’ve known dust to he matter in the right place.” The deep-toned voice of the superintendent broke in:— “Better begin at the beginning, D.V.” "Well, at 10.15,” began the inspector, with a twinkle in his eyes as he spoke in the stereotyped phrases beloved of the superintendent, “I received information from Sergeant Mason, of the Kensington Division, that a murder had been committed at 90 Ditchling Road, West Kensington.

1 left instructions for a doctor and the photographers to follow and drove here, exceeding the speed limit when I saw no police about.” ‘He’s in one of his funny moods,” said the superintendent, with a glance of dismay at the commissioner. David Vidler rubbed his eyelid and then winked solemnly at his superior. “The murdered man is John Simmonds, who was employed as a gardener and general man-of-all-work by Mr. James Lee. That is all I know about him at present, on the statement of the constable on the beat, who happens to have spoken once or twice to him. From the same constable I learnt that Mr. James Dee lias a wife, no children, is an export merchant, and. employs four maids and a butler, valet and gardener. The constable is, luckily, sweet on one of tlie maids, so information of a sort is readily available. Lee is at present staying at Ryeburn Manor, his house near Winchelsea. Simmonds was left here to keep an eye on things' in general.” “How long’s he been alone?” asked Markham, stroking his beard. “Five days. The constable was not impressed, with him one way or the other. Oil the whole, he thought he was a little surly or reserved. When the alarm tent off P.C. Bryant happened to be ’passing. There is a tradesmen’s entrance "at the left of the house, and he immediately went round and investigated. Judging by his familiarity with the route, I suspect it was a Lover’s Lane to him. He satisfied himself that no windows were opened or forced.” “He tried the back door?” “Yes, and then came round to the front. He’s had experience with these automatic alarms and knows they are liable to be set off from a number of causes which have nothing to do’ with the enterprising burglar. Sergeant Mason concurred at the time in his belief this was an accidental alarm and went to the station to telephone for one of the company’s servants to come and switch it off and reset it. While he was away a man named Harding, who occupies the upper of the two flats next door, came out and spoke to Bryant. “Bryant suggested there might be a way over the roofs through a skylight. It had also occurred to him that if there was a burglar he might have attempted to escape that way. Bryant remained in the street partly to keep his eyes and ears open and partly because it was the routine to remain until the alarm was stopped. Harding volunteered to investigate, remarking that anything was better than listening to the bell. He came down about a quarter of an hour later and announced there was a skylight and a way over the roofs. He was begrimed with dust. TWO SCRAPS OF PAPER “Mason had just rejoined Bryant, and he instructed the latter to accompany Harding . upstairs and get into this house if possible. Bryant reports that Harding came as far as the loft and then left him there, returning to his own flat. Almost as soon as Harding and Bryant had left him, Mason was joined by the man from the Burglar Alarm Company, who’d arrived on a motor-cycle with the key of the front door. They immediately went inside.” “Leaving the front of the house unguarded?” pointed out the superintendent. “Exactly,” resumed the inspector. “You'll see the significance of that later. The alarm bell is on the wall just outside what I supposed is the breakfast-room. When it was stopped Mason heard the constable coming down the stairs. Together the two made a tour of the house to see if everything was all right. In the dining-room—this room—they found the dead man lj-ing by the fireside. At his feet was a blood-stained poker. "Mason immediately went to the

telephone, which he had noticed in the hall, but found it out of order. He telephoned from Harding's flat, as it saved some minutes by not going to the station. I happened to be a mug and had called in to see if there was any work I could do that you two had left, working, as I do, twentyfour hours a day.” “Work’s good for you, D.V.”, said

the commissioner pleasantly. “Carry on.” “He’d been dead about half an hour at the most,” continued the inspector, after a pause to refill his pipe. “There were no signs of a struggle. The wallpaper had been scratched by the side of the fireplace, and I found some scraps of wallpaper in the dead man’s finger-nails. I should judge he'd put out his hands as he had fallen, and clawed at the wall to try to save himself, poor devil. Mind you, Markham, I’m not committed to that statement yet." “The poker” boomed the superintendent. “Hopeless. Wiped or gloves, ’ said the inspector succinctly. “Shows an old hand at the game,” suggested the commissioner. (To Be Continued Tomorrow^