The Polo Ground Mystery (8 page)

“Then let me congratulate you heartily,” said Vereker.

“Thanks,” replied Ralli solemnly; “the sentiment fits better with my feelings and the facts. I see you're naturally not a humbug. But are you staying anywhere in the neighbourhood?”

“I've taken a room at the ‘Silver Pear Tree.'”

“Oh. I hear it's a comfortable enough inn, but old inns frighten me. Parasitism even on the comic
ad infinitum
basis scares me stiff.”

“You don't say the place is buggy?” asked Vereker, with sudden alarm.

“I know nothing about it and wouldn't like to venture an opinion, but while you're engaged on this investigation stunt, won't you accept our hospitality and stay at the manor? My Aunt Angela will be delighted to welcome any friend of mine, and we're certainly not buggy!”

“It's very good of you, Ralli. I shall probably be glad to accept your invitation. In the meantime, I hope you'll leave it open. I can't decide on the spur of the moment.”

“Certainly, Vereker, certainly. Don't hesitate to come and explore the place if you think it'll help in your detective business. The sooner you get to the bottom of this appalling mess the better Angela and I shall be pleased.”

“You're sure Mrs. Armadale won't mind?”

“Absolutely certain. She's anxious to help all she can.”

“Splendid! Incidentally I'm rather eager to see your late uncle's collection of modern French paintings.”

“You're welcome. They're in a gallery by themselves. Angela calls it the ‘Museum of Psychopathy,' rather aptly, I think. Why not come up and lunch with me to-morrow? I shall be alone. Angela has gone to Sutton Pragnell for a day or two. She's terribly upset.”

“Thanks, I'll turn up. In the meantime, I'll continue further to trespass on your grounds.”

“Go anywhere you like. If Collyer catches you in any of the coverts he'll take you by the scruff of the neck and fling you out. While you're struggling with him, try and explain that you have my permission. Au revoir. We lunch at one.”

With these words, Mr. Basil Ralli turned, and opening a wooden door in the north wall passed through and closed the door behind him. Vereker heard him fasten the door by pushing two bolts into their sockets, and then wandered leisurely on his way towards Wild Duck Wood. The contretemps had been so unexpected and his embarrassment at seeing a pretty woman frankly hugged and kissed so acute that for some minutes he could not dismiss the subject from his mind. His embarrassment had risen from the fact that he had felt his presence at the moment something of a boorish intrusion. He figuratively kicked himself for his clumsiness, a clumsiness of inadvertence, and inadvertence was frequently equivalent to faulty manners. Ralli's smile had saved the situation. He recalled that smile. How pleasantly it had lit up the olive-skinned face, with a flash of perfect teeth and the sparkle of dark humorous eyes. The face was not English; the whole cast of countenance was Mediterranean. Ralli's mother was Sutton Armadale's sister, but Basil Ralli must have taken after his father. And, brief as had been their meeting, Vereker had learned the startling news that Sutton Armadale had left his nephew his fortune and estate. This was significant news in itself. He remembered Ricardo's story of the marital incompatibility of Sutton Armadale and Angela, and wondered whether this had been a stroke of posthumous vindictiveness on the financier's part. Absorbed in his speculations, he had wandered into the fringe of Wild Duck Wood and was suddenly brought to his senses by the sound of a woman's voice raised in vehement protest.

“I don't want to see you again, Frank, and I'm not going to. If you persecute me any longer as you've been doing lately, I'll put the matter in the hands of the police. Understand that once and for all! I don't want to be unkind, but I'll stand no nonsense!”

“You're welcome to your fancy man, but you'll be sorry and so will he. Mark my words, Trixie, you'll be sorry for this. So-long.”

The speakers could not be seen by Vereker, but he knew from the directional sound of their voices that they were screened from his sight by a dense tangle of blackthorn undergrowth. Much to his annoyance, Fate seemed determined to thrust on him the role of eavesdropper. Turning impatiently on his heel, he retraced his steps into the open, and hastening his pace, as if eager to get away from the place, was about to cross the meadow in the direction of Hanging Covert when a woman suddenly stepped out of the wood a few paces in front of him. On seeing him she promptly halted and uttered an exclamation of pained surprise. At once Vereker was aware that she was Basil Ralli's beautiful companion of half an hour ago. Immediately recovering her self-possession, she approached him.

“I'm sorry, sir, but I must warn you that you're trespassing. My father has strict orders to keep all strangers off the grounds at present.”

“Thanks for the warning, but it's all right. I've Mr. Ralli's permission to explore the place. My name's Vereker. Please tell your father; it will save any further trouble till he gets definite orders from Mr. Ralli. Am I speaking to Miss Collyer?”

It was a guess on Vereker's part. The girl spoke with a cultured enunciation not usually associated with a gamekeeper's daughter, but modern education, he remembered, was swiftly blurring the lingual demarcations of social status, and he had risked the shot. At once the air of inquisitive suspicion that had qualified her glance vanished, and she smiled.

“I'm Miss Collyer, and I beg your pardon, Mr. Vereker. I didn't know you knew Mr. Ralli. I thought you were just another of the crowd of strangers who've been over-running the place since Mr. Armadale was shot, yesterday.”

At this moment a burly figure in breeches and gaiters with a shot-gun under his arm stepped leisurely out of the wood and approached. He came forward with the slow, heavy tread of the countryman, his head turning now to the right and now to the left as his eyes swept across the meadows and piercingly scanned the edges of the surrounding coverts. They were the eyes of a man trained in a natural school of observation. A beautiful cocker bitch followed him close at heel. When a few paces off, he suddenly halted, pressed the lever opening the breech of his gun, extracted the cartridges, and slipped them into his pocket. Then his eyes wandered over Vereker from head to foot.

“Anything the matter, Trixie?” he asked slowly.

“No, dad. This gentleman is a Mr. Vereker. Mr. Ralli has given him permission to look over the place. I was just going to send him about his business, thinking he was a stranger, when he explained matters.”

“Good evening, sir,” said the keeper, addressing Vereker. “We got to be a bit particular since this shootin' business. Police are very strict about strangers pokin' round.” Turning to his daughter, he asked, “Worn't you in the wood a little time back?”

“Yes, dad,” replied his daughter, her cheeks suddenly flushing.

“I thought I heard young Frank Peach's voice,” commented the keeper casually. “Perhaps you was chatting to him?”

“Yes. I happened to meet him by chance as I was on my way home.”

“You was going a tidy bit out of your way to get home, Trixie,” remarked her father dryly. “Mebbe you had an appointment?”

“No, dad; I had no appointment. You know very well I don't want to see him.”

“So you say. Then when you see young Peach again, tell him I've strict orders not to let him trespass on these grounds. He knows it well enough, but won't take no telling from me. Perhaps he'll listen readier to you nor me.”

“I've already told him,” said Trixie quietly.

“Then he's asking for a boiling of trouble. If you will go home now and get the supper ready, I'll be back in an hour's time. Mr. Ralli was looking for you; did you see him?”

“Yes, I've just left him. It's a quarter to seven now. I'll expect you back about eight,” replied the girl, glancing at her wrist-watch, and without further words turned on her heel and hurried away.

“Is there anything I can do for you, sir?” asked the keeper, turning to Vereker. “Anything you want to know particular mebbe I can tell you.”

“Thanks, Collyer. As I'm working on this shooting mystery you may be helpful,” replied Vereker, as he glanced furtively at the keeper's face. It was a hard, weather-beaten face, with a thick, grizzled beard which completely hid the mould of his chin and jaw. The barely visible lips seemed thin and firm. Underneath the capacious peak of his old tweed cap bushy eyebrows shaded a pair of dark, shrewd eyes. There was a distrustful glint in those eyes which declared that Stephen Collyer would be hard to deceive and slow to accept human nature as wholly good.

“Inspector Heather seems to think there were more than two shots fired, Collyer. What's your private opinion?” asked Vereker.

“I told him, sir, I was pretty sure there weren't no more, but of course I might be wrong. There's no saying for certain in these things. These tecs always know better, far as I can see, and them newspapers talk a lot of nonsense.
Daily Report
said I thought poachers had sprung alarm guns. I know the sound of alarm guns better nor that, and I can generally tell the report of a poacher's gun when the barrels have been sawed off short. I had a suspicion it were neither. There was a something about those two shots as was different from a shot-gun. That's what made me take particular notice, so up I gets to see what was the matter.”

“You made your way to Hanging Covert, I believe?”

“Yes, because you can get a good view from there of a tidy bit of the estate. I weren't bothering about poachers at all.”

“How long did you take to get there?”

“It would be a good half-hour after I heard the shots. I went at a smartish pace.”

“After you spotted the body lying on the polo ground you went straight there?”

“Not exactly. I went across to Wild Duck Wood and then along by the north wall of the manor gardens. You see, sir, I wanted to come on the polo ground sudden-like.”

“I see, a sort of flanking approach to surprise the intruder.”

“I suppose that was it. More of a habit nor anything else.”

“You saw no one else about at that hour?”

“Nobody as could be connected with the murder.”

“Then you saw some one you knew?”

“Oh, yes. I come across young Frank Peach, who was startin' early for Nuthill. He was going down into Sussex to see about a job on Sir Conway Rigden's estate.”

“Did you speak to him?”

“I passed the time o' morning with him, and we chatted a little while quite pleasant. You see, sir, Peach used to be underkeeper to me, but him and Mr. Armadale couldn't get on with one another, and so the guv'nor sacked him about a week or so ago.”

“What was the trouble? I believe Mr. Armadale was an easy man to get on with,” asked Vereker in as casual a tone as he could assume.

For some moments, Collyer was silent as if weighing his words.

“I couldn't say for certain, sir,” he replied at length. “Mr. Armadale were easy enough to get on with if you humoured him, but you never knew when you had him and when you hadn't. He was very touchy about some things. Take his shootin', for example. He couldn't shoot for nuts, sir, and nothing worried him more. He wanted to be a good gun, and he tried mortal hard. But men is like dogs, there's some as you can never break in to the gun. He hadn't the hands nor the temper'ment. Far too excited he got, and he always handled a gun as if it were an umbrella as didn't belong to him. Him and young Frank had words when we were driving pheasants last year. Frank was loading for Mr. Armadale, and the guv'nor was missing most of his birds as usual. Suddenly he turns round and says to Frank, ‘In the name of God, what's wrong with my shooting, Peach?' Instead of smoothing him down or holding his own tongue as he oughter done, young Frank tells him blunt, ‘Your footwork's uncommon bad this morning, sir.' ‘Footwork be damned,' says Mr. Armadale. ‘I'm shootin' at pheasants, not kicking goals with 'em.' ‘You couldn't be worse at that, sir,' says Frank, and there weren't no excuse for him being impertinent like that. Young Peach is mortal touchy, and he took it to heart. He was dyin' to see the guv'nor killing his birds proper, and honestly it was gallin' to see the mess he was making of it. Even those he hit weren't no use to anybody but a plumber afterwards. A little later Frank was talking to one of the beaters, and he says, ‘It's Zeppelins tied to a mast the boss oughter try his hand at and not tall birds coming fast downwind.' Mr. Armadale overheard the words, and that, I think, was the beginning of the trouble. You see, sir, Mr. Armadale was not what we call a real sportsman. Terribly touchy about his shootin', he was. You had to handle him gentle as an egg.”

Amused as Vereker was by this narration, he was secretly convinced that it was an evasion. Something more than this, he felt sure, had led to Peach's dismissal.

“Can you take me to the spot near Hanging Covert from which you first saw Mr. Armadale's body, Collyer?” asked Vereker, to change the subject.

“Certainly, sir,” replied the keeper, glancing shrewdly at his questioner as he led the way across the meadows, followed close at heel by the cocker bitch.

As they were about to climb a portion of post and rail fencing, along which ran strands of barbed wire, the keeper suddenly stopped to observe a footprint in the soft earth of the ditch.

“Not there yesterday morning,” he muttered aloud.

“More trespassers?” asked Vereker, interested in the keeper's observation. Here, he thought, was one of Nature's detectives at work.

“Only a courtin' couple,” replied Collyer, with a smile. “There's the mark of a lady's heel as well. Courtin' couples ain't exactly troublesome, but some will bring a dog with them. You see that dog's hair stickin' to the barbed wire? Sheep-dog type, from the look of it, and I'd like to bet it's young Norman Sparrow's mongrel. I'll have to tell him if he wants to kiss and spoon in these meadows he'll have to do it without the help of his cur.”