The Disentanglers Part 42

'He disappeared.'

'The body disappeared?'

'It did, but you had better hear the witness's own account; I don't think a second-hand story will convince you, especially as you have a theory.'

'Was the witness a man or a woman?'

'A woman,' said the doctor.

'Oh!' said Merton.

'I know what you mean,' said the doctor. 'You think, it suits your theory, that the marquis came to himself and--'

'And squared the female watcher,' interrupted Merton; 'she would a.s.sist him in his crazy stratagem.'

'Mr. Merton, you've read ower many novels,' said the doctor, lapsing into the vernacular. 'Well, your notion is not unthinkable, nor pheesically impossible. She's a queer one, Jean Bower, that waked the corpse, sure enough. However, you'll soon be on the spot, and can examine the case for yourself. Mr. Logan has no idea but that the body was stolen for purposes of blackmail.' He looked at his watch. 'We must be going to catch the train, if she's anything like punctual.'

The pair walked in silence to the station, were again watched curiously by the public (who appeared to treat the station as a club), and after three-quarters of an hour of slow motion and stoppages, arrived at their destination, Drem.

The doctor's own man with a dog-cart was in waiting.

'The marquis had neither machine nor horse,' the doctor explained.

Through the bleak late twilight they were driven, past two or three squalid mining villages, along a road where the ruts showed black as coal through the freezing snow. Out of one village, the lights twinkling in the windows, they turned up a steep road, which, after a couple of hundred yards, brought them to the old stone gate posts, surmounted by heraldic animals.

'The late marquis sold the worked-iron gates to a dealer,' said the doctor.

At the avenue gates, so steep was the ascent, both men got out and walked.

'You see the pits come up close to the house,' said the doctor, as they reached the crest. He pointed to some tall chimneys on the eastern slope, which sank quite gradually to the neighbouring German Ocean, but ended in an abrupt rocky cliff.

'Is that a fishing village in the cleft of the cliffs? I think I see a red roof,' said Merton.

'Ay, that's Strutherwick, a fishing village,' replied the doctor.

'A very easy place, on your theory, for an escape with the body by boat,'

said Merton.

'Ay, that is just it,' acquiesced the doctor.

'But,' asked Merton, as they reached the level, and saw the old keep black in front of them, 'what is that rope stretched about the lawn for?

It seems to go all round the house, and there are watchers.' Dark figures with lanterns were visible at intervals, as Merton peered into the gathering gloom. The watchers paced to and fro like sentinels.

The door of the house opened, and a man's figure stood out against the lamp light within.

'Is that you, Merton?' came Logan's voice from the doorway.

Merton answered; and the doctor remarked, 'Mr. Logan will tell you what the rope's for.'

The friends shook hands; the doctor, having deposited Merton's baggage, pleaded an engagement, and said 'Good-bye,' among the thanks of Logan. An old man, a kind of silent Caleb Balderstone, carried Merton's light luggage up a black turnpike stair.

'I've put you in the turret; it is the least dilapidated room,' said Logan. 'Now, come in here.'

He led the way into a hall on the ground-floor. A great fire in the ancient hearth, with its heavy heraldically carved stone chimney-piece, lit up the desolation of the chamber.

'Sit down and warm yourself,' said Logan, pushing forward a ponderous oaken chair, with a high back and short arms.

'I know a good deal,' said Merton, his curiosity hurrying him to the point; 'but first, Logan, what is the rope on the stakes driven in round the house for?'

'That was my first precaution,' said Logan. 'I heard of the--of what has happened--about four in the morning, and I instantly knocked in the stakes--hard work with the frozen ground--and drew the rope along, to isolate the snow about the house. When I had done that, I searched the snow for footmarks.'

'When had the snow begun to fall?'

'About midnight. I turned out then to look at the night before going to bed.'

'And there was nothing wrong then?'

'He lay on his bed in the laird's chamber. I had just left it. I left him with the watcher of the dead. There was a plate of salt on his breast. The housekeeper, Mrs. Bower, keeps up the old ways. Candles were burning all round the bed. A fearful waste he would have thought it, poor old man. The devils! If I could get on their track!' said Logan, clenching his fist.

'You have found no tracks, then?'

'None. When I examined the snow there was not a footmark on the roads to the back door or the front--not a footmark on the whole area.'

'Then the removal of the body from the bedroom was done from within.

Probably the body is still in the house.'

'Certainly it has been taken out by no known exit, if it _has_ been taken out, as I believe. I at once arranged relays of sentinels--men from the coal-pits. But the body is gone; I am certain of it. A fishing-boat went out from the village, Strutherwick, before the dawn. It came into the little harbour after midnight--some night-wandering lover saw it enter--and it must have sailed again before dawn.'

'Did you examine the snow near the harbour?'

'I could not be everywhere at once, and I was single-handed; but I sent down the old serving-man, John Bower. He is stupid enough, but I gave him a note to any fisherman he might meet. Of course these people are not detectives.'

'And was there any result?'

'Yes; an odd one. But it confirms the obvious theory of body-s.n.a.t.c.hing.

Of course, fishers are early risers, and they went trampling about confusedly. But they did find curious tracks. We have isolated some of them, and even managed to carry off a couple. We dug round them, and lifted them. A neighbouring laird, Mr. Maitland, lent his ice-house for storing these, and I had one laid down on the north side of this house to show you, if the frost held. No ice-house or refrigerator _here_, of course.'

'Let me see it now.'

Logan took a lighted candle--the night was frosty, without a wind--and led Merton out under the black, ivy-clad walls. Merton threw his greatcoat on the snow and knelt on it, peering at the object. He saw a large flat clod of snow and earth. On its surface was the faint impress of a long oval, longer than the human foot; feathery marks running in both directions from the centre could be descried. Looking closer, Merton detected here and there a tiny feather and a flock or two of down adhering to the frozen ma.s.s.

'May I remove some of these feathery things?' Merton asked.

'Certainly. But why?'

'We can't carry the clod indoors, it would melt; and it _may_ melt if the weather changes; and by bad luck there may be no feathers or down adhering to the other clods--those in the laird's ice-house.'

'You think you have a clue?'