The Bungalow Mystery (22 page)

Roger did not respond. If Mrs. von Rheinhart had made an unfavourable impression upon him when she was ill, it was considerably strengthened now. There was something sly, something underhand about the glance of her big black eyes, about the curve of her lips, he fancied; and the contrast between the peculiar pallor of her face—its pinched nostrils telling their own story of disease—and the gay hues of her attire struck him as particularly unpleasing.

“I suppose you are not aware that the park is private property, Mrs. von Rheinhart?” he said at last. “Sir James is always extremely annoyed at trespassing.”

She did not look discomposed.

“I understood Monday was a free day.”

“For the gardens and for certain parts of the park, in so far as they are shown to the public by the gardeners,” Roger corrected her. “People are not allowed to wander about by themselves.”

“Are they not?” The sly-looking eyes were watching him steadily now, a gleam of irony shining in their black depths. “I must apologize for my intrusion, then. Perhaps you would kindly show me the way to the part that is open. I have been anxious to have a little further conversation with you, and if you will allow me I will avail myself of this opportunity.

Roger paused a moment before he replied. But, profoundly as he distrusted and disliked Mrs. von Rheinhart, refusal was scarcely possible. He turned with her reluctantly.

“It will be best to make our way to the head gardener's house if you wish to go round; but I think it my duty to tell you that you are walking far too much, Mrs. von Rheinhart. You ought to rest much more than you do.”

“Better to wear out than to rust out,” she returned indifferently. “I wonder whether you will be interested to hear that we are getting on with our investigations, Dr. Lavington? The arrest of my husband's murderer is only a question of a few days now.”

“Is that so?” Lavington's tone was studiously disinterested.

Mrs. von Rheinhart's eyes had a crafty glint as she glanced at him obliquely from beneath her dark eyelashes.

“We have found out what preceded and led up to the murder—the motive, I mean. As the French say, we have reconstructed the whole, and the rest is easy. The woman who murdered my husband is the one who, six years ago, stole his love from me. You may guess that now, more than ever, I shall not spare her.”

Roger made no reply; his expression of stern gravity did not relax. Inwardly he was wondering what truth there might be in the story. In spite of his certainty that Mrs. von Rheinhart would stop at nothing to gain her own ends, to trip an admission from him, he had an uneasy feeling that there was something in what she said: there was an air of elation, of ill-concealed triumph, about her whole bearing.

The head gardener's house was nearer than the Manor; it stood in its own trim little garden, with a gravelled walk leading across the neatly-kept lawn to the front-door. A group of people waiting to be taken round the Manor grounds stood near the porch.

Roger opened the gate.

“If you will send in your card, some one will come to you.” He was about to turn away, when Mrs. von Rheinhart put out her hand and clutched his arm.

“Who—what is that?”

Roger looked at her in amazement. Evidently she was labouring under intense excitement: her eyes were wide open and dilated, she caught her breath as if in physical pain.

“Ah, I warned you—”

“It is not that,” she interrupted. “I thought I saw some one I used to know—some one who is dead.” She was staring at the people who were moving backwards and forwards before the house. “It—you must come with me; I am frightened!” Her lean, muscular fingers were endowed with new strength as she tugged at his sleeve. “Come! You must come!”

Her voice, her clasp, were so urgent that Roger found himself yielding against his better judgment. She half dragged, half led him across the lawn. To all outward appearance the people who were now looking curiously at them were very ordinary folks indeed—a farmer's wife or two, stout and comely, with pretty, shy-looking daughters, a few prosperous-looking tradesmen who had driven over from the nearest small town with their families, attracted by the prospect of an afternoon's pleasuring in the Manor gardens. There was nothing that Roger could see to account for Mrs. von Rheinhart's excitement.

Suddenly, before they came up to the others, she stopped again and passed one hand over her eyes.

“Was I dreaming or mad?” she asked in a low, tense voice. “It—there is no one there!”

“You were mistaken,” Roger said soothingly. “At a distance, one person looks very much like another. Was it a man or a woman you thought you recognized?”

“Mrs. von Rheinhart did not turn to him; her eyes, still looking scared and troubled, were fixed straight before her.

“It was a ghost!” she said slowly. “A ghost from the past—a shadow of ill-omen.”

Detective Collins sat in his private office; his brows were knit as he bent over a sheet of writing paper; his lips moved mechanically.

“Um, um! Blessed if I know what to make of it.” There was a knock at the door; he hastily thrust the paper into a drawer in the desk.

“What is it?”

A clerk looked in.

“Inspector and another gentleman, sir—sailor.”

Mr. Collins made a sound expressive of satisfaction.

“Matthew Wilson of course; the very man I was thinking of. Show them in!”

The offices of Messrs. Collins & Mason's Detective Agency were situated in a gloomy little street off the Strand. As yet the firm was only in a small way; Mr. Collins had not felt justified in making any considerable outlay.

The three dark little rooms which the agency occupied were furnished in the most meagre fashion, and were in curious contrast with the flower-surrounded police station at Sutton Boldon, and with Farmer Corbett's sunny little best parlour. But Mr. Collins was true to his instincts. On the table before him, looking strangely out of place in its dingy surroundings, there stood a tall specimen-glass holding one exquisite crimson rose. Detective Collins was smelling it as he greeted his visitors.

“Ah, I can't rival you, inspector, but I always must have a bit of something to look at. Well, Mr. Wilson, I was hoping that my note might catch you, but I wasn't sure, so I didn't reckon on it. But I'm glad to see you—very glad.”

Matthew Wilson scratched his head doubtfully. Seen in the shabby office, he looked very big and burly. His weather-beaten face seemed to bring a breath of the sea into the smoke-laden atmosphere.

“I wasn't rightly sure that I could manage it, sir; but Inspector Spencer he came on purpose to see me, and he said it was necessary. I was just about signing for a voyage in the Mediterranean. It wouldn't be a matter of more than a month or so.”

Detective Collins shook his head.

“I'm afraid it won't do.” The detective opened a drawer and took out a number of photographs. “This is why I was anxious to see you this morning, Mr. Wilson. I wanted to know if you could identify any of these.”

He spread out the cards on the table. They all represented men in different costumes. Matthew Wilson bent over them silently for a minute, scrutinizing them one by one, then he laid his finger down emphatically and straightened himself.

“That is him, sir—the man I saw get over The Bungalow wall. I didn't have much of a look at him, you may say, but I could swear to him anywhere.”

Mr. Collins took up the photograph he indicated, and, after marking it, laid it aside on the mantelshelf, without making any comment. Then he shuffled the others again together and threw them aside.

“Once more, Mr. Wilson,” taking another packet from the drawer and laying them out one by one.

The sailor looked at them carefully; his face brightened.

“There he is again, sir! I knew I hadn't made a mistake. You can see for yourself it is the same man.”

Still with the same impassive air, the detective marked it and placed it beside the other.

“That is all, then, this morning, Mr. Wilson. I am much obliged to you. Now, if you will take a word of advice—I have an appointment with a lady in half an hour, and I must have a talk with the inspector here—if you could take a walk down to the wharf and tell them you have changed your mind about going to the Mediterranean, then come back here, and we will have a bit of dinner together at a quiet house I know of, and you could get the 3.20 train. What do you say?”

“Thank you, sir; much obliged to you, sir,” Matthew Wilson said, as he made his adieux and got himself out of the room.

As the sound of his footsteps died away on the stairs, Inspector Spencer glanced at his colleague.

“Those portraits, Mr. Collins?”

The detective tossed them across to him.

“Nos. 8 and 27!” he announced. “You see the list here—No. 8, Sir James Courtenay, photographed in shooting costume; No. 27, Sir James Courtenay in ordinary morning dress.”

The Inspector silently compared them.

“Umph! Seems rather to clinch matters, doesn't it?” he said as he returned them.

Mr. Collins drew in his lips.

“It is a corroboration anyway. I received a curious communication last night, inspector; I am anxious to hear your opinion of it.”

He opened his desk, and, taking out the paper he had been scrutinizing when the others entered, handed it to him.

“Read it out,” he commanded. “It is a queer start.”

The inspector went over to the window.

The inspector droned it out in the deep tones in which he was accustomed to giving evidence at the police court. At its conclusion he laid it down and stared at the detective.

“Well, this is a new development! Who could have written it?”

“I might make a guess, and then again I might be wrong,” the detective replied ambiguously. “I am expecting Mrs. von Rheinhart every minute”—glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece—“we shall see what she has to say to it.”

The inspector did not seem much delighted at this piece of intelligence.

“It will be the first time she has been any good to us, if she has a sensible suggestion to make. She gets on my nerves, that woman. ‘Arrest the murderer of my husband! I will have vengeance!' she says to me. And it is no good pointing out to her that we have got to find him first. Beats me why she is so keen on avenging her precious husband; he seems to have been a thorough bad lot, and from her own account he treated her like a brute.”

“Women are queer creatures, the best of them.” Mr. Collins was studying the anonymous letter closely.

At last the inspector looked up.

“Do you see one thing, Mr. Collins? This shows there is a third person we ought to find.”

“A third person?” The detective's tone was distinctly puzzled.

The inspector's clean-shaven face looked triumphant; for once he had raised a point the astute Mr. Collins had failed to grasp.

“Yes. Don't you see, if anyone knows enough to send us this letter, the writer must know enough to be a valuable witness, if we could find him.”

Mr. Collins was not wearing his black beard now; his thin lips twisted into an oracular smile.

“Ah, yes! I didn't see your point for a moment, inspector. But, yes, of course, the writer could tell us a good deal of the events of that night of April 14th; could clear up much of the mystery that overhangs it. But I don't fancy we shall get much more out of him.”

“But this proves that some one else must have been hanging round The Bungalow that night,” the inspector persisted, “somebody who knew Sir James Courtenay by sight too, probably. What is the postmark? West Strand,
W.C.
Um! That does not tell us much. Anybody might get it posted there. But the writer must be found.”

“I don't think that will be necessary,” Detective Collins said quietly. “I fancy I could make a pretty good guess here in London at the name you want.”

“What! I don't understand!” the inspector questioned blankly.

“Don't you?” the other questioned blandly.

“Look at it again, inspector.”

“I don't see the least clue to the writer,” he said at last.

“I didn't say there was; still I would bet something I tell you the right name.” The detective's smile deepened.

“Well, I give it up.” Inspector Spencer's tone was distinctly haughty. At times, of late, he had been inclined to think that Mr. Collins was getting too big for his boots; it seemed to him to-day that his manner was almost offensively superior. “Who do you think it was?”

Mr. Collins was chuckling quietly to himself.

“It was meant for—I don't mind saying that—Hush! Here comes Mrs. von Rheinhart.”

His ears were sharp. The other had heard nothing, but in a moment the clerk appeared to say that Mrs. von Rheinhart was in the other room. That lady was not given to ceremony. She followed closely on the messenger's heels. One glance at her face proclaimed the fact that her temper was not of the most amiable. Her look at the two men, the toss of the head with which she accepted the chair the detective placed for her, betokened that her mood was aggressive.