Crossword Mystery (6 page)

When he was ready, he went downstairs to the study – or “den,” as Mr. Winterton called it – where he found his host waiting with the young man of the golf-clubs, Colin Ross, who acknowledged Mr. Winterton's introduction with a grunt and then went back to the evening paper, over which he was looking very ill-tempered.

“They've scratched Four Aces,” he announced. “Dirty trick. They don't want her to win, that's all; keeping her back for next time.”

“Four Aces scratched,” Bobby exclaimed, with a great show of interest. “I was going to risk a pound on her, both ways.”

“ ‘Going to' is lucky,” Colin retorted. “I have – a fiver.”

Bobby duly sympathised, and Colin grew more friendly in the realisation that Bobby also knew something of racing and was apparently interested in the sport. In point of fact, Bobby's interest in racing was entirely theoretical, but he knew well that the surest way of winning the confidence – and the confidences – of any Englishman is to have, and to be able to express, an instructed opinion on that great perennial question: “What'll win?”

In fact, the discussion between the two young men grew quite technical and animated till Mr. Winterton interposed with a dry suggestion that Colin had better “go and wash his face and comb his hair” before dinner.

“How much have you dropped recently, Colin?” he added as the young man, acting on this tactful suggestion and muttering something about supposing old Mother Cooper would be raggy if he were late, was making his way to the door.

Colin looked sulky, as though the question did not please him.

“I'll pick up next week,” he declared. “I'm on a good thing – try a tenner on Blackberry, Uncle George. You'll get a good price, because Gordon Richards is riding Sandboy. But Blackberry's a dead cert – even Gordon can't stop her beating Sandboy unless there's a dickens of a lot of rain between then and now. That might do it, but nothing else will.”

He vanished, and, as the door closed behind him, Bobby caught the oddest expression showing for a moment on Mr. Winterton's face – of doubt and questioning, it seemed, and something that looked almost like a haunting terror, that in Colin's presence the older man had been at pains to suppress but that now peeped out the moment he was gone. Then Mr. Winterton seemed to remember Bobby was there, and said hurriedly and nervously:

“I know those good things of Colin's – a pretty penny they've cost me. They do come off sometimes, though. I might risk a trifle, perhaps.”

He turned to make a note on the blotting-pad on the table, and when he looked round at Bobby again he had recovered his selfpossession.

“Mr. Ross seems to know a good deal about the game,” Bobby observed.

“A good deal too much. He'll burn his fingers pretty thoroughly one of these days,” Mr. Winterton grumbled. “I've told him more than once he ought to stop it; so did Archibald. A regular row they had about it. Of course, it's the boy's own business, really; he's his own master and it's his own money.”

“Is Mr. Miles Winterton interested in racing, too?”

“Miles? Do you know him?” Mr. Winterton asked quickly, and then, as if recollecting himself: “Of course you would,” he declared; “it was Miles's father who was with your father and myself on that walking-tour we all made in the Scottish Highlands.” He paused, and could not resist bestowing a wink on Bobby, as if to claim admiration for the way in which he had followed the advice given him of identifying Bobby's supposititious parent with some actual former friend. “No, I don't think Miles goes in for racing much. I don't suppose you'll meet him this time; he's not staying here just at present.”

He said this rather shortly, frowning as he pronounced Miles's name, and Bobby made a mental note that if it almost seemed as though he held one of his nephews in secret terror, against the other he held some hidden, unexpressed anger.

The gong sounded presently, and they went into the diningroom, where Mary Raby was waiting for them. Mr. Winterton introduced Bobby and plunged into talk about the book Miss Raby had been to London to secure. It had arrived now, having been brought up from the 'bus stop by someone from the village, and Mr. Winterton was still talking about it when Colin appeared – after the soup had been served, for Mr. Winterton would wait no longer, but having “combed his hair and washed his face”; in other words, having had a bath and changed from plus fours to a dinner-jacket in something like record time.

“Miles still giving us a miss?” he remarked with a slightly malicious grin as he took his seat.

Neither Mr. Winterton nor Miss Raby answered him, though Mr. Winterton frowned and Miss Raby went red, and Colin switched off to tell them the solution to a clue in a crossword puzzle that had apparently been too much for both of them. It had something to do with a technical racing expression that neither Mr. Winterton nor Miss Raby had ever heard of. But the proffered solution was ingenious, Mr. Winterton was almost childishly pleased, and Miss Raby sighed and expressed a sad opinion that never, never would she be able to compose a puzzle so ingenious as those in this particular series. It seemed she had met the author of them, and she declared that he always made them up in bed, just before going to sleep, and apparently with very little trouble.

“They just come,” she said. “I have to work and work, and then it's never anything like so good.”

“I've been trying my hand myself,” Mr. Winterton remarked. He took a paper from his pocket-book and looked at it. “It's interesting to try,” he said. “I don't say this one I've been doing is technically very good, but I do think anyone who solved it would find it interesting – I might even say extremely interesting.”

He spoke with a certain emphasis that caught the attention of all of them. But he said no more – did not offer to show it – and, putting the paper back in his pocket, devoted all his attention to the meal. It was a very good one, too, quite worthy of undivided attention, doing equal credit to Mrs. Cooper's cooking and to Cooper's serving, while the procession of wines placed before them was worthy of greater appreciation than it received – for Colin cared only for whisky, Miss Raby drank only water, Mr. Winterton had sunk again into his own thoughts, and for Bobby wine was a thing to be avoided as an interference with a clear head and clear thinking. But Cooper, where wine was concerned, had something in him of the pure artist, and was content to know how right the port, the sherry, the hock, and the rest of them had been.

Afterwards they all went into a smaller room and played bridge; and Bobby disgraced himself by displaying a perfect ignorance of the fact that bidding four in clubs is a clear indication that the bidder holds not one card of that suit, as well as of other peculiarities of what once was a good game till the convention fiends fell upon it.

The bridge-party broke up rather early, for Mrs. Cooper appeared to say that Jane was waiting. Jane was apparently a young woman from the village, engaged to help Mrs. Cooper in the evenings, and, as Miss Raby lodged in the village, though she had all her meals in her employer's house, it was usual for Jane to escort her back to the village.

After that Colin became immersed in the racing news, and obscure calculations of weights and ages and distances, and Mr. Winterton, after asking Bobby to help him with a crossword puzzle in that morning's paper, suggested that, as it was a fine warm night, with moon and stars shining, a stroll along the shore might be agreeable.

Bobby accepted with alacrity; it was indeed what he wanted, for there were questions he had to ask he did not care to utter in the house. But Colin looked up with something between a sneer and a smile.

“I thought you had given that up, uncle – taking strolls in the dark.”

Mr. Winterton did not answer, though he looked vexed. When they got outside, he said:

“We'll take Towser.”

He whistled once or twice, but there was no reply. Bobby asked:

“Is that the Airedale I noticed? Fine-looking dog.”

“Yes, it belonged to poor Archibald,” Mr. Winterton replied. “When my sister-in-law moved, I took it over.”

He whistled again, but still there was no response, and Mrs. Cooper appeared.

“Are you wanting Towser, sir?” she asked. “We can't find him anywhere. I've been looking for him to give him his supper. Cooper's been all round the house, but he can't see him anywhere.”

“Oh, well, I expect he'll turn up,” Mr. Winterton said, and began to walk down the drive Bobby noticed was lighted, and well lighted, by hanging electric lamps. The road to the village was lighted in the same way, and now Bobby could see lights in the cottages that seemed much more brilliant than those of the lamps or candles he would have expected to be in use there. He made some remark to that effect, and Mr. Winterton laughed.

“Mrs. Cooper's doing,” he said. “When I bought this house, it was pretty old-fashioned – it was built a hundred and fifty years ago or more. I had a hot-water system put in and a bathroom – there ought to have been two, but that wasn't thought of at the time – and an electric light plant to supply the house. Mrs. Cooper suggested that at very little extra expense we could generate enough to supply the village and light the road – most of the cottages belong to me; I had to buy them with the house. I said all right, I thought it a good idea; make me popular with the villagers and so on. But she had a battle royal with them before they would agree to have it put in; they thought it was a deep-laid plan to raise their rents or turn them out or something else equally villainous. I should have said, “All right, if you don't want it, do without,” but she fairly bullied them into taking it, and in the end she got her own way. A remarkable woman in her own fashion, even if she is a little too fond of arranging everything for everybody. I think I told you I had to threaten to get rid of her once, she and her husband, but I was glad enough to keep them on all the same, once I had made them understand they couldn't have everything quite their own way.”

They had passed out of the drive now, and turned by an old wooden post standing in the shingle near a boat that was lying upside down. As they were passing it, Bobby was conscious that Winterton started suddenly and then stiffened. Bobby said:

“There's something there, isn't there?”

“No, nothing, no,” Mr. Winterton answered, but all the same Bobby was sure he had seen a form rise from behind the boat and slip swiftly away into the darkness.

For a moment Bobby was tempted to follow, so sure was he that the gliding shadow he could make out in the distance was that of someone who had been startled by their approach. But there seemed no object to be served by such pursuit; Mr. Winterton was already walking on in another direction, and it came somehow into Bobby's mind that to leave him alone might not be wise or prudent. He hurried after him accordingly, and as he joined him said:

“I am sure that there was someone there.”

“Are you?” Winterton said indifferently. After a pause he added: “How dark the night is.”

This was hardly accurate, for in fact the night was very calm and clear, and, though there was no moon, the stars were shining brightly, their light reflected from the still water of the almost landlocked cove by which the two men were walking. Nor did Mr. Winterton seem to find it dark enough in fact to trouble him, for he was walking briskly and steadily, putting down his feet without hesitation. All the same, he said again:

“How dark the night is.”

They had come now to a spot where the ground was higher as the shore sloped upwards to the cliffs that guarded the entrance to the Cove. It was bare and open here, too, with no shelter near for any eavesdroppers, and, as Winterton paused to look out across the Cove where the innumerable stars above shone in multiplied reflection, Bobby said to him:

“Mr. Winterton, now we are alone, I want you to switch your mind over and begin to think of me again as an officer of police, investigating an extremely serious matter.”

“Oh, yes, there's that,” Winterton agreed, turning and looking at him. “Yes, of course.” He added: “I can't think what's happened to that dog. I've never known him go off like this before.”

“There are some questions I want to ask you,” Bobby said, slightly impatient, for that the Airedale was missing for the time did not strike him as a detail of importance. “Do you mind telling me exactly what makes you think that the inquest verdict was wrong, and that Mr. Archibald Winterton's death was not accidental?”

“I don't think; I know,” the other answered moodily. “Do you never know things without knowing why you know them?”

“In the police,” Bobby answered with some emphasis, “we are expected to know just exactly why we know what we know – no good talking about Bergsonian intuition to Treasury Counsel. I understand there was something about a dream...”

“Oh, that,” Winterton answered, more briskly, rather as if rousing himself from the mood of abstraction into which he had fallen. “Oh, yes, I had to satisfy Markham somehow. Yes, I had a dream all right, but I don't feel as I do because I had a dream: most likely I had a dream because of what I was feeling. But I had to shut Markham up somehow.”

“Why?”

“Because he made me tired, talking so much, worrying for reasons. Reasons are all very well. I've seen men on the Stock Exchange act on fool-proof reasons and drop a fortune, and others act without the shadow of a reason and romp home millionaires.”

“All the same,” Bobby said quietly, “reason's our profession, and if you would tell me yours for thinking what you do, it would be a help.”

Winterton turned again and laid a hand heavily on Bobby's arm.

“Why should Archy have drowned?” he asked, his voice low and hoarse and shaken with a strong emotion that seemed half anger and half fear. “I tell you he was as likely to drown as water is to burn or lead to swim. It was a warm spell just then; the night had been so hot I hadn't been able to sleep till I dropped off towards morning. It was perfectly calm; the tide didn't turn till later on. He left the house soon after six – there's proof of that; he would be in the water by half past six. The tide didn't begin to turn, to make the down coast current run with any strength, till half past seven – all that's on record. And Archy knew it all; it was to avoid the full strength of the current that he went down to the shore half an hour earlier than usual. He wasn't an ordinary swimmer; he was an expert – and as careful as he could be, too. The expert's always careful; it's only the amateur who takes risks.”