The Hunt Ball Mystery Part 22

"It appears from her story that on the night of the Hunt Ball held here she had been paying a visit to some friends at Rapscot, a village, as you know, about a mile beyond Wynford. On her way back to the town, for which she started at about 9.45, she took as a short cut the right-of-way path running across the park and pa.s.sing near the house. As she went by she was naturally attracted by the lighted windows and could hear the band quite plainly. She stopped to listen to the music at a point which she has indicated, almost directly opposite the tower.

"She says she had stood there for some little time when her attention was suddenly diverted to what seemed a mysterious movement on the outside of the tower. A dark body, presumably a human being, appeared to be slowly sliding down the wall from the topmost window. Unfortunately before she could quite realize what she was looking at--and we may imagine that a country girl would take some little time to grasp so unusual a situation--a cloud drifted across the moon and threw the tower into shadow.

"The girl continued, however, to keep her eyes fixed on the spot where she had seen the dark object descending, with the result that in a few seconds she saw it reach and pa.s.s over one side of the window of the lower room which was sufficiently lighted up to silhouette anything placed before it. She saw the object move slowly over the window and disappear in the darkness beneath it. When, a few seconds later, the moon came out again nothing more was to be seen.

"The girl stayed for some time watching the tower, but without result.

She is a more or less ignorant, unsophisticated country-woman, and what she had seen she was quite unable to account for. Naturally she hardly connected it with any sort of tragical occurrence. The house with its lights and music seemed given over to gaiety; that any one should just then have met his death in that upper room never entered her imagination.

A vague idea that a thief might have got into the house and she had seen him escape by the tower window did indeed, as she says, cross her mind, and that supposition prevented her from approaching the tower to satisfy her curiosity. But as nothing more happened she began to think less of the significance of what she had seen, in fact almost persuaded herself that it had been something of an optical delusion. Presently, having had enough of standing in the cold wind, she resumed her way, went home and to bed, and early next morning left the town to enter a situation in another part of the country.

"It appears that she had taken cold by her loitering and soon after reaching her destination became so ill that she had to keep her bed, and it was only on her recovery a few days ago that she heard what had happened here that night. Directly she could get away she came over and told her story to us."

"A pity she could not have come before," Morriston remarked as the chief constable paused. "Her evidence is highly important, disposing as it does of the mystery of the locked door."

"Yes," Major Freeman agreed, "and also of the suicide theory. The question now is--who was the person who was seen descending from the window?"

"Could this girl tell whether it was a man or a woman?" The question came from Henshaw, who had hitherto kept silent.

"She thinks it was a man," Major Freeman answered, "but could not swear to it. The fact of the object being close to the wall made it almost impossible in the imperfect light to distinguish plainly. But I think we may take it that it was a man. The feat could be hardly one a woman would undertake."

"No," Gifford agreed. "And there would seem little chance of identifying the person."

"None at all so far as the girl Haynes is concerned," Major Freeman replied. "But we have something to go upon; a starting point for a new line of inquiry. The person seen escaping must have lowered himself by a rope from that top window and a considerable length would be required. I have taken the liberty, Mr. Morriston, of setting a party of my men to search the grounds for the rope; they will begin by dragging the little lake."

"By all means," Morriston a.s.sented.

"Detective Sprules," the chief proceeded, "would like to make another examination of the ironwork of the window. May he go up now?"

"Certainly," Morriston answered, and the detective left the room.

Gifford spoke. "The girl saw nothing of the escaping person after he reached the ground?"

"Nothing, she says," Major Freeman answered. "But the base of the tower was in deep shadow, which would prevent that."

"A pity her curiosity was not a little more practical," Henshaw observed.

"Yes." Gifford turned to him. "You are proved correct, Mr. Henshaw, in your repudiation of the suicide idea. Perhaps, in view of this latest development, you may have knowledge to go upon of some one from whom your brother might have apprehended danger?"

Henshaw's set face gave indication of nothing but a studied reserve. "No one certainly," he answered coolly, "from whom he might apprehend danger to his life."

"There must have been a motive for the act," Kelson observed. "Unless it was a sudden quarrel."

"There appears," Major Freeman put in, "to be no evidence whatever of anything leading up to that."

"No; the cause is so far quite mysterious," Henshaw said.

It seemed to Gifford that there was something of undisclosed knowledge behind his words, and he fell to wondering how far the motive was mysterious to him.

Morriston proceeded to acquaint Major Freeman with the discovered cause of the marks on the ladies' dresses, and they all went off to the lower room where the position of the stains was pointed out. Edith Morriston was no longer there.

"Miss Tredworth sat at this end of the sofa," Morriston explained, "and so the marks on her dress are clearly accounted for."

"And Miss Morriston?" Henshaw put the question in a tone which had in it, Gifford thought, a touch of scepticism.

"Oh, my sister must have been in here too," Morriston replied. "Or how could her dress have been stained? Unless, indeed, she brushed against Miss Tredworth's or someone else's. That's clear."

There seemed no alacrity in Henshaw to accept the conclusion and he did not respond.

"I am glad this part of the mystery is so satisfactorily settled,"

the chief constable remarked. "Now we have the issue narrowed.

Well, Sprules?"

The detective had appeared at the door.

"I have examined the ironwork of the window, sir," he said, "and have found under the magnifying-gla.s.s traces of the fraying of a rope as though caused by friction against the iron staple."

"Sufficient signs to bear out the young woman's statement?"

"Quite, sir. There is upon close examination distinct evidence of a rope having been worked against the hinge of the window."

"Very good, Sprules. We may consider that point settled," Major Freeman said.

Having finally satisfied themselves as to the cause of the stains on the floor and sofa, the chief constable and his subordinate proposed to go to the lake and see whether the men who were dragging it had had any success. Morriston and Henshaw with Kelson and Gifford accompanied them.

As they came in sight of the boat the detective exclaimed, "They have found it!" and the men were seen hauling up a rope out of the water.

"Sooner than I expected," Major Freeman observed as they hurried towards the nearest point to the boat.

The rope when landed proved to be of considerable length, sufficient when doubled, they calculated, to reach from the topmost window to within five or six feet of the ground.

"The escaping person," Henshaw said, "must have slid down the doubled rope which had been pa.s.sed through the staple of the window, and then when the ground was reached have pulled it away, coiled it up, carried it to the lake, and thrown it in. Obviously that was the procedure and it accounts completely for the locked door."

The chief constable and the detective agreed.

"A man would want some nerve to come down from that height," the latter remarked.

"Any man, or woman either for that matter," Henshaw returned dogmatically, "would not hesitate to take the risk as an alternative to being trapped up there with his victim."

"You are not suggesting it might have been a woman who was seen sliding down the rope?" Gifford asked pointedly.

Henshaw shrugged. "I suggest nothing as to the person's ident.i.ty," he replied in a sharply guarded tone. "That is now what remains to be discovered."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE LOST BROOCH

The police authorities with Henshaw and Morriston went off with the rope to experiment in the room of the tragedy.