The Postmaster's Daughter Part 47

"I'm afraid so. Have a look."

"Just a minute. I want to think."

Winter turned and gazed through the open window. Seldom had a more gracious June decked England with garlands. The hour was then high noon, and a pastoral landscape was drowned in sunshine. The Chief Inspector cut the end off a cigar dreamily but with care.

"Broadmoor--perhaps," he muttered. "But we can't hang him yet, Charles. A couple of knots and a theory won't do for the a.s.sizes. We haven't a solitary witness. Hardly a night but he goes home at 9.30. If only he had killed Grant! But--Adelaide Melhuish!"

In sheer despair he struck a match.

"Well, let's overhaul these duds," said Furneaux savagely. "I'll chance the dinner hour for the return visit. Steynholme folk eat at half past twelve to the tick, and you can hardly get up another horse show."

There was a knock at the door.

"Let me in, quick!" came Peters's voice, and the handle was tried forcibly.

"Go away! I'm busy!" cried Winter.

"This is urgent, devilish urgent," said Peters.

Furneaux s.n.a.t.c.hed up the note-book, and Winter tore off his coat, throwing it over the package which reposed in an armchair. Then the Chief Inspector unlocked the door, blocking the way aggressively.

"Now, I must say--" he began.

But Peters clutched his shoulder with a nervous hand.

"Siddle has just hurried up the street and entered his shop," he hissed.

The journalist had not only kept his eyes open, but excelled in the art of putting two and two together, an arithmetical calculation which, as applied to the affairs of life, is not so readily arrived at as many people imagine.

"Buncoed! He's missed his keys!" shrilled Furneaux.

"Confound the man! He might at least have attended his mother's funeral!"

stormed Winter, retrieving his coat.

Thus it happened that Furneaux was the first down the stairs, though the three emerged from the door of the inn on each other's heels. A stout man, in all likelihood a farmer with horses for sale, was mounting the two steps which led to the entrance. His head was down, and his weight forward, so he successfully resisted Furneaux's impact, but Peters and Winter were irresistible, and he tumbled over with a m.u.f.fled yell.

At that instant Siddle quitted his shop, and headed straight for the post office. In his right hand he carried an automatic pistol. The street was wide. Furneaux, absolutely fearless in the performance of his duty, ran in a curve so as to bar the chemist's path, and it was then that Siddle saw him. The man's face was terrible to behold. His eyes were rolling, his teeth gnashing; he had bitten his tongue and cheeks, and his stertorous breathing ejected from his mouth foam tinged with blood.

"Ha!" he screamed in a falsetto of fury, "not yet, little man, not yet!"

With that he raised the pistol, and fired point-blank at the detective.

Furneaux ducked, and seized a small stone, being otherwise quite unarmed.

He threw it with unerring aim, and, as was determined subsequently, struck the hand holding the weapon. Possibly, almost by a miracle, the blow caused a faulty pressure, because the action jammed, though the pistol itself was most accurate and deadly in its properties.

By this time Winter, sweeping Peters aside, was within ten feet of the maniac, who turned and ran into the shop. The door, a solid one, fitted with a spring lock, slammed in the Chief Inspector's face, and resisted a mighty effort to burst it open. A few yards away stood an empty, two-wheeled cart, uptilted, and Winter demanded the help of a few men who had gathered on seeing or hearing the hubbub.

"I call on you in the King's name!" he shouted. "We must force that door!

Then stand clear, all of you!"

He raced to the cart, and, when his object was perceived, willing hands a.s.sisted in converting the heavy vehicle into a battering-ram. The gradient of the hill favored the attack, which was made at an acute angle, and the first a.s.sault smashed the lock. There were a couple of seconds' delay while the cart was backed out, and the detectives rushed in, Furneaux leading, because Winter gave his great physical strength to the shafts. But the Chief Inspector grabbed his tiny friend by the collar as the latter darted around the counter and into the dispensary in the rear.

"Two of us can't go abreast, and you'll only get hurt," he said, speaking with a calmness that was majestic in the circ.u.mstances.

"The nicotine is gone!" yelped Furneaux; both saw that the safe stood open.

Behind the dispensary was a small pa.s.sage, whence the stairs mounted, and a door led to the kitchen. That door was closed now, though it was open when Furneaux ransacked the house. Therefore, they made that way at once.

No ordinary lock could resist Winter's shoulder, and he soon mastered this barrier. But the kitchen was empty--the outer door locked but unbolted. Since it is practically impossible for the strongest man to pull a door open, the two made for the window, and tore at screws and catch with eager fingers. Furneaux, light and nimble-footed, scrambled through first, so it was he who found Siddle lying in the orchard beyond the wall of the yard. The unhappy wretch had swallowed nearly the whole remaining contents of the bottle of nicotine, or enough to poison a score of robust men. He presented a lamentable and distressing spectacle. Some of the more venturesome pa.s.sers-by, who had crowded after the detectives and Peters, could not bear to look on, and slunk away in horror.

Furneaux soon brought an emetic, which failed to act. Siddle breathed his last while the gla.s.s was at his lips.

In that moment of crisis only three men did not lose their heads. Winter cleared away the gapers, while Furneaux remained with the body. P.C.

Robinson came up the hill at a run, and was sent for a stretcher, bringing from Hobbs's shop the very one on which the ill-fated Adelaide Melhuish was carried from the river bank.

But where was Peters? In the post office, writing the first of a series of thrilling dispatches to a London evening newspaper. What journalist ever had a more sensational murder-case to supply "copy"? And when was "special correspondent" ever better primed for the task? He wrote on, and on, till the telegraphist cried halt. Then he hied him to London by train, and began the more ambitious "story" for next morning. What he did not know he guessed correctly. A f.a.gged but triumphant man was Jimmie Peters when he "blew in" to the Savage Club at 1 A.M. to seek sustenance and a whiskey and soda before going home.

Furneaux was white and shaken when Winter escorted the stretcher-bearers to the orchard.

"Poor devil!" he said, as the men lifted the body. "Foredoomed from birth! We can eradicate these diseases from cattle. Why not from men!"

The villagers could not understand him. Already, in some mysterious way, the word had gone around that Siddle had murdered the actress, and taken his own life to avoid arrest, after shooting at the detective who was hot on his trail.

Not until Peters's articles came back to Steynholme did the public at large realize that the chemist undoubtedly meant to kill Doris Martin. He was going straight to the post office when the way was barred by Furneaux. The bullet which missed the latter actually pierced the zinc plate of the letter-box, and scored a furrow, inches long, in an oak counter which it struck laterally.

The village did not recover its poise for hours. Grant and Hart, to whom Bates brought the news about one o'clock, rose from an untasted luncheon and hurried to the high-street. Knots of people stared at Grant, some sheepishly, others with frank relief, because all who knew him liked him.

One man, a retired ironmonger and an impulsive fellow, came forward and wrung his hand heartily. A few prominent residents followed suit. Grant was greatly embarra.s.sed, but managed to endure these awkward if well-meant congratulations. There could be no mistaking their intent. He had been tried for murder at the bar of public opinion, and was now formally acquitted.

Even Fred Elkin, ignorant as yet of his own peril, yielded to the influences of the moment and bustled through the crowd.

"Mr. Grant," he cried outspokenly, "I ask your pardon. I seem to have made a d--d fool of myself!"

"Easier done than said," chimed in Hart. "But, among all this bell-ringing, can anyone tell what has actually happened? Where's Peters?"

"In the post office."

The two went in, and found the journalist scribbling against time. Hart coolly grabbed a few slips of ma.n.u.script, and commenced reading. Grant looked about for Doris. She was not visible, but Mr. Martin, pallid and nervous, nodded toward the sitting-room. The younger man, taking the gesture as a tacit invitation, entered the room.

Doris was sitting there, crying bitterly. Poor girl! She had seen that portion of the drama which was enacted in the street, and the shock of it was still poignant. She looked up and met her lover's eyes. Neither uttered a word, but Grant did a very wise thing. He caught her by the shoulders, raised her to her feet, and, after kissing her squarely on the lips, gave her a comforting hug.

"It will be all right now, Doris," he whispered tenderly. "Such thunderstorms clear the air."

An eminent novelist might have found many more ornate ways of avowing his sentiments, but never a more satisfactory one. At any rate, it served, so what more need be said?

Certain rills of evidence acc.u.mulated into a fair-sized stream before night fell. P.C. Robinson, for instance, scored a point by ascertaining that Peggy Smith had seen Furneaux dropping from the bedroom window of the chemist's shop. She was some hundreds of yards away, and could not be positive that some man, perhaps a glazier, had not been there legitimately effecting repairs. Still, when she met Siddle hurrying from the station, she told him of the incident.

"He never even thanked me," she said, "but broke into a run. The look in his eyes was awful."

The girl had, in fact, confirmed his worst fears, and her neighborly solicitude had merely hastened the end.

Again, the railway officials showed that Siddle had returned from Victoria instead of taking train to the asylum. Furneaux had guessed aright. The discovery that his keys had been left behind drove the man into a panic of fright.