The Mystery of Ryeburn Manor

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 922, 15 March 1930, Page 22

The Mystery of Ryeburn Manor

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JOHN LAURENCE

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

CHAPTER XLV (Continued) “Of course.” said tire doctor, rising. “I’ll be getting along now. X til ink Mr. Lee will be all right.” “Don’t go yet, doctor.” said Lee "I'd like you to hear what I’ve got to tell Inspector Vidler. If my idea is right you’ll have a bit of a shock when you make that post-mortem. I don’t think Thornton was killed by the smash-up at. all.” Dr. Luding looked astonished, while Vidler rubbed his eyes with his i handkerchief, as Lee, leant forward and ! began to tell his story. THE SHOTS IN THE WOOD “I expect you’ll think I’m a fool,” j began Lee. “But I’m going to tell you what I think. We broke a spring. | The fools at the garage said they’d | put a new one in in half an hour, so I ! decided we’d have some dinner while ! we were waiting. We weren’t in any j hurry and it was actually a quarter to nine when we went along to pick up j the car. Of course they were still [ fooling about. They hadn’t got the right spring in stock and had been } searching Hastings to get it.” . “It hadp’t arrived then?” asked Vidi ler, as Lee paused. ! “No. They’d sent someone to fetch it, so we -went and had a game of bilj liards to pass the time and left about \ ten o’clock.” ! “Who was driving?” "I was. We’d just passed through ■ Guestling Thorn, on that stretch of | road where those woods are, when I heard a report like a tyre going off. | The windscreen splintered and Thorn- \ ton lurched suddenly against me, | wrenching the wheel out of my hand. 1 We’d shot across the road and were into the bank before I knew what had happened.” “You were going pretty fast, I suppose?” asked the inspector. "About thirty to thirty-five,” replied

[ Lee. “There wasn’t a chance to I straighten out before we’d gone over. | I suppose I’ve got as good a nerve as I most people, but I crawled out feeling ! nr * / rocky. The lights had gone and ' I d. r’t know what had happened for j a minute.” ; He paused and sipped a little brandy | from the glass by his side. “Take your time,” said Vidler. I “You’ve had a nasty shock.” | Lee nodded. His face looked white 1 and drawn, and it was not enhanced by the patches which had been put over his cuts. His eyes roved restlessly backward and forward from one to another of his listeners. “Luckily no bones were brojten, though I was cut about by the windscreen,” continued Lee. “I managed to get at Thornton.” He swallowed the remainder of the brandy at a gulp. “He’d gone, poor devil! I couldn’t do anything for him. Looked to me he must have been killed at once. I suppose I must have stood there some minutes. I don’t remember what I did until there came back to me that report and I had a look at the tyres. I thought one must have burst. And then a gun went off ! n the wood.” “WE’LL GET HIM!” “A gun?” echoed Vidler. The police sergeant looked across at the inspector. “We’ve been worried by poachers the last few weeks,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I heard two or three shots. I was making my way along to the wood when I found Mr. Lee staggering in the direction of Guestling Thorn.” “You think the dead man was killed by a stray shot?” asked Dr. Luding quicklj', turning to Lee. *

“Yes. I remembered the windscreen splintering. It didn’t occur to me until I heard that second shot. And then I had another look at Thornton. He’d got a pretty nasty hole in the side of his head. That’s what I wanted you to look for. I reckoned somebody ought to be had up for manslaughter.” “We’ll get him all right,” said the sergeant confidently. “I shouldn’t be surprised if they haven’t laid hands on him. There were three of us working the woods, but, of course, I was called off.”

“Get him. sergeant; get him good and strong,” said Lee sharply. “If a £IOO reward will do the trick I’ll put up the money. Nothing will give me greater pleasure than to pay it out.” He shook his fist savagely, and the doctor laid a hand on his arm. “it’s upsetting, Mr. Lee, but the police will find him,” he said sooth-, ingly. “I think, perhaps, it would be best if you got to bed. Who’s your doctor in Rye?” “Rawlinson,” replied Lee.

“An excellent fellow. I’ll give him a call and tell him what has happened.” “Do you mind driving back?” asked Vidler, turning to Harding. “I’ll go along to Hastings.” “Going to be up all night?” asked Harding.

“Shouldn’t wonder. Expect me when you see me. Say nothing about that gear,” he added in a low voice as

Lse went out, accompanied by Doctor Luding. JIM PERRINGS —POACHER “Are his injuries dangerous, doctor?” he asked, when the latter returned from seeing Lee off. “Hardly more than scratches,” replied the other. “He’s had a most marvellous escape. It’s extraordinary how some people in a ear smash come off lightly while others are killed instantly.” “Thornton was badly hurt?” “One arm was broken and half a dozen ribs smashed, as well as a nasty cut across the forehead. I never noticed that shot wound, but then I wasn’t looking for it. Queer kind of accident. The chances of it happening must only be one in millions.” “They’re pretty small," agreed Vidler. “Have you a telephone, sergeant?” “Yes, sir.” The inspector turned to the doctor. “Perhaps you’d make a superficial examination of the wound and let me know if it was a bullet killed Thornton. I’ll wait here with the sergeant on the off cha.nce they get that poacher.” “All right, I will,” agreed the doctor. “I suppose you’ve a pretty shrewd idea who the poacher is?” asked Vidler, when Luding had gone. “No doubt about it, sir. It’s Jimmy Perrings. He’s not a bad, sort, really, but he can’t resist a bit of poaching now and then. We want to catch him in the act.” “Sounds as though they’ve got him,” said Vidler drily, as there came the sound of a man’s voice raised outside. The sergeant sprang up. “That’s him, sir. Will you see him in the office? I’ll put on a lamp.” The prisoner proved to be a red- ( bearded, truculent-looking man, with a scar across his face. He glared at the inspector defiantly, and then turned and grinned at Sergeant Pett. “Give ’em a run for their money, eh? Dang ’em, they thought I’d shoot ’em. I weren’t arter bluebottlesThey don’t make good eatun.” He roared at his own joke, and the two constables grinned sheepishly. “That your gun?” asked Vidler. “Ay, and a dang nice gun she be.” Vidler picked it up and examined it. “You might pepper a man close to with it, but you wouldn’t kill him at 20 yards with it,” he remarked. “It ain’t likely. I uses it to kill wermin,” said the poacher grinning cheerfully. “Now, then, sergeant, what about a bit of evidence?” He put his hand in an inside pocket and pulled out a rabbit. CHAPTER XLVI. The poacher dropped the rabbit on the desk. “That’s evidence, sergean(,” he said. “ ’Ave it for tomorrow’s dinner. You and the missus’ll enjoy it.” Vidler, who had been watching with a smile of amusement on his face, intervened. “If you like to tell the strict truth, Perrings,” he said slowly, “I think I can persuade Sergeant Pett to overlook tonight’s affair.” “What’s the game, mister?” “It’s no game,” replied Vidler easily. “Here, fill your pipe.” He passed over his tobacco pouch and Perrings took it eagerly. “Now, that’s what I call a gent, mister. A bit of baccy does you good.” He pushed the tobacco into his pipe with his forefinger, while he eyed the inspector shrewdly. He was a fine type of manhood, with a twinkle in his clear blue eyes which rather appealed to Vidler. There was nothing vicious about him, and, in fact, later, the detective learnt that, apart from his poaching propensities, the man

was a good workman and reliable. Rut he held a theory that all wild animals were every man’s property. “What’s the idea, mister?” he asked, as he puffed out a great cloud of smoke with evident enjoyment. “I want you to tell me where you were poaching tonight,” replied Vidler. “That’s all.” “Dang it, ain’t that what I'm ’ere for?” demanded Perrings, stroking his red beard. “These ’ere two *bluebottles were buzzin’ round ” _ “He was on the edge of the woods, sir, about half a mile from the road,” volunteered one of the constables, “when we laid hold of him.” The poacher nodded his agreement with the statement. “There ain’t no rabbits on the roadside, what with trippers and bluebottles scaring ’em.” “You don’t work the road, then?” The other grinned. “You ain’t from these parts, mister. There ain’t nuthin’ on the road.” “That’s true, sir,” said the sergeant, who was beginning to get an idea of the inspector’s questions. “Promise me you won’t poach any more tonight, and you can go home, ■Perrings," said Vidler. “Dang it, sir, but you fair puzzle me like. The sergeant had better keep my gun. I ain’t to be trusted with a gun an’ that’s a fact.” “You call for it in a couple of days’ time,” said the insx>ector. “The shot from that would never go through a windscreen and kill a man at twenty feet, let alone half a mile,” he observed, when the grinning, rather amazed, Perrings had gone. “I might a’ thought of that,” said the sergeant. “Old Jimmy’s truthful enough, though he is a bit of a hard nut. If he says he was poaching the other side that’s where he was. Besides, there’s nothing to poach this side of the road.” “That rules him out,” pointed out Vidler. “I’ll have a shake down here, and we’ll have a look round as soon as day breaks.” THE BULLET

The closest search the following morning, however, failed to reveal the slightest trace of anyone who must have been within a few yards of the edge of the road to hit a passing car. “You might search for a week without finding,” remarked the sergeant. “This undergrowth’s pretty thick now.”

“There’s something to be gathered from the fact that we don’t find any traces,” said , Vidler, thoughtfully. “The very absence of clues is sometimes a clue.”

Sergeant Pett scratche dhis head as he agreed, though he had not the slightest idea what the inspector was driving at.

Vidler did not hurry back to Ryeburn Manor. After breakfast in the servant’s cottage he boarded . a passing omnibus to Hastings, and there interviewed Doctor Luding. The latter had just come back from his examination when the detective arrived. “Lee was right,” he explained. “There’s a bullet wound just above the left ear. The bullet’s still there.” “That's all I want to know,” said Vidler. “I’m much obliged to you, doctor. Did you phone Rawlinson at Rye ?”

“Yes; he’s going out there at once. In fact, I gather he was just about to start when I got in touch with him. Mrs. Lee has had a fit of hysterics.”

“Do you mind if I use your phone? asked the detective.

He spoke to Harding, who seemed in a state of subdued excitement. “Lee broke the news to his wife this morning,” he said, in reply to Vidler’s. question. “And I told Miss Sunderland. She wants to see you, D.V., as soon as possible. She’s got something vital to tell you. She’s asked me half a dozen times where you were. Thornton’s death has been a terrible shock to her. It was Thornton she wanted to see last night before she told you her story, not. Lee, as we thought. She’s keeping out of Lee’s way.” “She’s got the real pearls, of course,” said Vidler. He smiled grimly to himself as he heard Harding give an exclamation of astonishment. “How did you know, D.V.?” “I didn’t til! you spoke. I’m just begining to put two and two together, Thornton, poor devil, did one good thing by dying as he has done.” “What’s that?” “Brought Miss Sunderland out into the open,” said Vidler. SHEILA’S STORY Vidler on his return to Ryeburn Manor found Sheila and Harding sitting in the morning room talking in low tones to one another. There was a look of acute distress in her blue eyes, a strained expression on her white, tear-sta.ined face.

“Oh, I’m so glad you’ve come, Mr. Vidler,” she cried, chokingly. “It’s terrible, terrible! I can hardly believe it, even now.”

“I hope it will see the end of your troubles, Miss Sunderland,” said Vidler, gravely. “I think that it will.” “Oh, but the price is too great,” she wailed, dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief. “I feel I’m i-esponsible for his death.”

“Nonsense, my darling,” cried Harding. “It might have happened any time. You can’t make yourself responsible for a motor accident.”

“Supposing we go out into the grounds,” suggested the inspector. “We may be interrupted here. Let us go and sit in the summer house.”

“No. no, not there; anywhere but there,” protested Sheila. It was there ”

She broke off and cupped her face in her hands, and Harding made clumsy efforts to comfort her.

“Poor little darling, you’ve had a rough time. But there’s nothing to worry about now. You must go right away where you can forget.” He put his hand on her slim, shaking shoulders. The inspector lighted a cigarette and looked out of the window. A pretty woman in tears was something which did not come within his powers of reasoning. It was a situation which he could only receive by waiting. , (To be continued on Monday)