Crossword Mystery (9 page)

“Hullo, hullo, how's this?” he said. “Not in bed yet? I thought you were always in bed by now.”

“I'm just a little worried about Towser, sir,” she explained. “We can't find him anywhere. I thought perhaps he might have joined you.

“No, we've not seen him,” Winterton answered, “but he'll be all right – gone back to Mr. Archibald's place again, perhaps.”

“I thought myself it might be that,” Mrs. Cooper said with an appearance of being a good deal relieved to find her employer had the same idea. “I've put the tray in your room, sir, as it's a little late. It's rather damp by the sea, sir, to-night, isn't it? I hope you didn't feel as if it might bring on your rheumatism again?”

“No, no, no, quite all right,” Winterton assured her hastily, and when Mrs. Cooper had gone he said to Bobby: “It has got a bit late – nearly eleven. We keep early hours here, you know; not like London. The youngsters are generally up early for a swim, and that makes a difference, I expect. How do you feel? Like to go up to your room, or would you care for a nightcap and a chat first?” Bobby declined the suggestion of a “nightcap” – he never touched spirits if he could help it – expressed entire willingness for bed, and, as he said good night to his host, noticed that the promised thermos flasks and biscuits were ready ranged on a table in the hall. An idea came into his mind; he rejected it; it came back, and he told himself it might be as well to keep it tucked away in his memory. It was not likely that a thermos flask could bear the meaning that had suggested itself to him and yet perhaps it might, and in a thoughtful, troubled mood he went upstairs to his room. The window was wide open this warm night; and as he went across to it he heard once more a low wailing cry floating out across the still water of the Cove. It was Mrs. Cooper again, calling for the missing Airedale, and now it seemed there was in fact a certain chilliness in the air, for, as he listened, Bobby found himself shivering a little.

When Bobby went to his room, he made first a few preparations for bed and then sat down by the window with fountain-pen and paper to write out his first report.

But he found himself both with so much to say and so little idea of how to disentangle the significant from the unimportant that presently he put his paper by, returned his fountain-pen to the pocket of the coat for which he had changed his dinner-jacket, and set himself instead to review in his mind all that he had learnt and seen and heard since his arrival.

Of one thing at least he was certain. His host, George Winterton, retired stockbroker, peacefully occupying himself in his retirement with a study of currency theory, on whose brother a strange and sudden death had recently descended, believed that he himself went in deadly imminent peril of a like fate.

For that Mr. Winterton's fear was genuine Bobby was by now well convinced. There was no mistaking that look of terror in his eyes, the occasional nervous twitching of his muscles. And the look Bobby had seen him throw after Colin Ross when that young man left the room was just the look Bobby had seen show in other men, when swift terror gripped them and their eyes betrayed it.

It would seem to follow, then, that young Colin was the source of this terror that his uncle was experiencing, and yet it might well not be so. He might merely typify it, or be simply the unconscious channel through which it threatened.

Then, again, why on the one hand did Mr. Winterton apply to the authorities for protection, and yet on the other hand refuse to give the information required to make such protection effective? That might mean there was something he felt it was necessary he should keep concealed, but then in that case why had he gone to the police at all? It was true he said something about some letter he was expecting, the receipt whereof would allow him to talk more freely. But that might be mere bluff, a device to keep Bobby quiet and patient. Bobby's own feeling was that Mr. Winterton should be told plainly that either he must be entirely frank and open or no help could be given him. On the whole Bobby hoped his superiors would take that view which for his part he intended to recommend strongly.

Then, again, there was the possibility that the whole thing might be mere hallucination. Mr. Winterton's fear might be real enough in itself and yet founded on illusion. In other words, Mr. Winterton might not be quite sane on that point. Possibly the shock of his brother's death might have overthrown his mental balance; and yet, even in formulating this theory, Bobby doubted it. More than once already in his police work he had come across cases of insanity, and he had grown to recognise symptoms of it that all seemed to him quite absent from his host, who indeed appeared to him perfectly sane.

But, all the same, it was a possibility to remember; and still, as Bobby gazed now from his open window across the Cove out to the open sea, where a man's life shortly before had left him, he seemed to himself to grow conscious of a sense of threat, of menace somehow, implicit in the scene.

It was as though the Cove, the sea beyond, were waiting for another victim, patiently, calmly, certainly, knowing their hour must come. The feeling came to him that they were watching; watching him perhaps; and so strong did this sensation grow, of secret eyes aware of every movement he made, that he turned to switch off his light that he might be the less easily seen if there was anyone out there watching him, for now this feeling had passed from the vague impersonality of sea and cove to the more concrete idea of some living man or woman hiding out there in the shadows of the garden, or further out by the shore, in order to keep him under observation. Indeed, once he even thought he saw a movement among some bushes at a little distance, but that, he decided, was only his imagination. All the same, he denied himself the solace of a cigarette lest the sight of its glowing tip, or the smell of the burning tobacco, might reveal to any possible watcher that he was still alert and wakeful.

By the open window, then, behind the curtain, he sat quietly, his thoughts very busy. The night was very still; the vague disquiet he had experienced before began to leave him; his sense of reason and of logic woke once more to tell him that it was a thousand to one Archibald Winterton's death was merely one of those unfortunate accidents that darken with their tragedy every bathing season, and that George Winterton's unease and fear were merely subjective, without reality, a result of the shock he had experienced in losing his brother.

But in that case it followed there was nothing to investigate – no threatening, obscure danger to be guarded against; nothing, in fact, for Bobby to do but enjoy a quiet and peaceful holiday by the sea.

However, that was not his business here, and he supposed his only course was to assume that murder had really been committed, that Mr. Winterton was really threatened by some danger or another, that every conceivable line of inquiry must be followed up till his superiors decided they were leading nowhere and withdrew him. Better, evidently, to run no risk through too hasty assumptions of neglecting what might prove in the end to have been a terrible reality.

At any rate, one fact was certain – Archibald Winterton was dead: a little strangely dead, indeed, for there was always the question why an expert, experienced swimmer should drown upon a calm, warm, sunny morning.

Chin resting upon clenched hands, his eyes staring intently into the calm and luminous night, Bobby set himself to consider a solution that had been lying at the back of his mind for some time and that now thrust itself forward. Could it be that George Winterton himself was his brother's murderer? Was that the reason for the strange fear that so evidently had him in its grip? If he himself had called in police aid, was that a result of the restlessness criminals often know that forbids them ever to feel themselves safe, that makes them pile precaution on precaution till the very excess brings about exposure? More than once, even in Bobby's brief experience, he had known criminals themselves take the first steps towards drawing attention to the crimes they had themselves committed.

If George Winterton were himself the murderer, might he have argued that for him to call in the police would be the best means of turning suspicion away?

But, then, the dead man was his brother, and, though fratricide occurs, it is not common, at any rate not without strong motive, and in this case no motive at all was discernible. The two brothers had, it seemed, always been on friendly terms; there was no known cause of quarrel. True, there had been recently large and presumably important financial transactions between them, and in such affairs bitter disputes have been known to arise, but these seemed to have followed a perfectly normal course – though there was always the possibility that more lay behind such dealings than appeared on the surface. Further, there was the evidence of Mr. and Mrs. Cooper that at the time of the accident or murder, George Winterton was fast asleep in his own bedroom, which seemed conclusive, unless the actual deed had been carried out by an accomplice or unless the evidence of the Coopers was in some way mistaken.

Then there was the little red-haired, angry Mr. Shorton. Motive enough was there, apparently, for murder has been done for a smaller cause than the loss or gain of ten thousand pounds – more, indeed; for the scheme Mr. Winterton had outlined had obviously very considerable speculative possibilities.

Only it seemed difficult to imagine ordinary City men planning and carrying out a cold-blooded murder. But then Bobby saw he had been using there a question-begging phrase: How did he know Mr. Shorton was an ordinary City man? Shorton might be very far from “ordinary,” and, though murder is foreign to City methods, the temptation to remove a life standing obstinately and irrationally before the realisation of a big scheme involving many interests might prove irresistible to some tempers.

In that case it would follow that George Winterton was now the obstacle in the way, and, if he realised that, then that might prove to be, after all, the cause of these fears he was suffering from.

Then there were the three nephews, and first of all Colin Ross, and the puzzle of the fact that it was he of whom his uncle seemed so fearful. Did that mean, Bobby wondered, that Winterton suspected Colin of being the murderer, and feared to meet the same fate at his hands?

But there again it seemed difficult to imagine any motive. No suggestion, apparently, of any quarrel or ill feeling, nothing that Colin stood to gain in any way by the death of either of his uncles. Rather would he lose, apparently, since Archibald had been willing to lend him money at times, and George, it seemed, provided him with free quarters when he needed them. There was the possibility that he had borrowed from his uncle Archibald more than he could repay, and that he was being pressed for it, but of that there was no tittle of evidence. Undoubtedly a man who was to all seeming an almost professional backer of horses might easily be desperately hard up for money without anyone knowing it, but the death of Archibald brought him no gain, only the loss of a possible source to borrow from.

Then there were the other two nephews, James Matthews and Miles Winterton. Of these, the first had apparently been in Paris at the time of the tragedy. The second, Miles, was, it seemed, in disgrace for having been flirting with Miss Raby, but there was nothing in that to suggest any connection with the murder.

Then there was Miss Raby herself, apparently a harmless little typist-secretary. She seemed intelligent and good-looking and possibly had not been averse to the flirtation that had got Miles Winterton into trouble with his uncle, but there was nothing to suggest she had any connection with the tragedy of Archibald's death. All the same, Bobby decided it would be as well to try to find out something more about her.

Then there were the Coopers, butler and housekeeper. A tragic story, Bobby reflected, it was that he had been told about the woman. No wonder there was something aloof and strange about her, as of one who had experienced more than others ever know. Evidently a woman of much strength of character, too, with abilities and powers at war, so to say, with her environment, and seeking expression in every possible way, as in dominating her employer and the village affairs. Bobby found himself smiling a little as he remembered how she had gently urged her employer bedwards by informing him that the tray with his “nightcap” – a whisky and soda, probably – had been put in his bedroom, and equally gently had put a stopper on further late rambles she apparently didn't approve of by casual references to chills and damp sea air. Mr. Winterton would probably think twice before rambling about late at night again. Yes, a clever woman, and one who might have made something of her life had it not been wrecked by the treachery of the man who had tricked her into a sham marriage. A pity she had been forced to ally herself with her present husband, who did not look as if he had much in him or was ever likely to be anything but a butler.

“I expect she runs him all right, though,” Bobby thought, half smiling; “if she gets half a chance she may run him into something after all. But I bet he'll never call his soul his own any more, though very likely he doesn't know it.”

In any case, it seemed impossible to think of any motive they could have either for compassing the death of their employer's brother, or for threatening the safety of that employer himself. There was nothing, so far as Bobby could see, that they could hope to gain in either case. If they wanted a change, all they had to do was to give notice and go, though Bobby had a strong suspicion that Mrs. Cooper would much prefer to work for a bachelor or for a widower than take a place where there was a mistress. Then, again, if their testimony cleared Mr. George Winterton of all suspicion of being concerned in his brother's death, since it proved he was in bed and asleep at the time, it also in a way cleared them as well.

Finally, there were the people in the tiny village with whom Bobby promised to make himself acquainted in the morning, but not a touch or shred of suspicion seemed at present to point towards any of them. Also there were Adams, the chauffeur and gardener, and his wife, who apparently came to the house to help Mrs. Cooper with the housework. They occupied a cottage in the village, and it was with them, Bobby gathered, that Miss Raby lodged.