Loveday expressed her satisfaction with the programme that Mr. Griffiths had sketched for her, then she had a few questions to ask.
“Tell me,” she said, “what led you, in the first instance, to suspect young Mr. Craven of the crime?”
“The footing on which he and Sandy stood towards each other, and the terrible scene that occurred between them only the day before the murder,” answered Griffiths, promptly. “Nothing of this, however, was elicited at the inquest, where a very fair face was put on Sandy ’s relations with the whole of the Craven family. I have subsequently unearthed a good deal respecting the private life of Mr. Harry Craven, and, among other things, I have found out that on the night of the murder he left the house shortly after ten o’clock, and no one, so far as I have been able to ascertain, knows at what hour he returned. Now I must draw your attention, Miss Brooke, to the fact that at the inquest the medical evidence went to prove that the murder had been committed between ten and eleven at night.”
“Do you surmise, then, that the murder was a planned thing on the part of this young man?”
“I do. I believe that he wandered about the grounds until Sandy shut himself in for the night, then aroused him by some outside noise, and, when the old man looked out to ascertain the cause, dealt him a blow with the bludgeon or loaded stick, that caused his death.”
“A cold-blooded crime that, for a boy of nineteen?”
“Yes. He’s a good-looking, gentlemanly youngster, too, with manner as mild as milk, but from all accounts is as full of wickedness as an egg is full of meat. Now, to come to another point – if, in connection with these ugly facts, you take into consideration the suddenness of his illness, I think you’ll admit that it bears a suspicious appearance and might reasonably give rise to the surmise that it was a plant on his part, in order to get out of the inquest.”
“Who is the doctor attending him?”
“A man called Waters; not much of a practitioner, from all accounts, and no doubt he feels himself highly honoured in being summoned to Troyte’s Hill. The Cravens, it seems, have no family doctor. Mrs. Craven, with her missionary experience, is half a doctor herself, and never calls in one except in a serious emergency.”
“The certificate was in order, I suppose?”
“Undoubtedly. And, as if to give colour to the gravity of the case, Mrs. Craven sent a message down to the servants, that if any of them were afraid of the infection they could at once go to their homes. Several of the maids, I believe, took advantage of her permission, and packed their boxes. Miss Craven, who is a delicate girl, was sent away with her maid to stay with friends at Newcastle, and Mrs. Craven isolated herself with her patient in one of the disused wings of the house.”
“Has anyone ascertained whether Miss Craven arrived at her destination at Newcastle?”
Griffiths drew his brows together in thought.
“I did not see any necessity for such a thing,” he answered. “I don’t quite follow you. What do you mean to imply?”
“Oh, nothing. I don’t suppose it matters much: it might have been interesting as a side-issue.” She broke off for a moment, then added:
“Now tell me a little about the butler, the man whose wages were cut down to increase Sandy ’s pay.”
“Old John Hales? He’s a thoroughly worthy, respectable man; he was butler for five or six years to Mr. Craven’s brother, when he was master of Troyte’s Hill, and then took duty under this Mr. Craven. There’s no ground for suspicion in that quarter. Hales’ exclamation when he heard of the murder is quite enough to stamp him as an innocent man: ”Serve the old idiot right,“ he cried: ‘I couldn’t pump up a tear for him if I tried for a month of Sundays!” Now I take it, Miss Brooke, a guilty man wouldn’t dare make such a speech as that!“
“You think not?”
Griffiths stared at her. “I’m a little disappointed in her,” he thought. “I’m afraid her powers have been slightly exaggerated if she can’t see such a straightforward thing as that.”
Aloud he said, a little sharply. “Well, I don’t stand alone in my thinking. No one yet has breathed a word against Hales, and if they did I’ve no doubt he could prove an alibi without any trouble, for he lives in the house, and everyone has a good word for him.”
“I suppose Sandy ’s lodge has been put into order by this time?”
“Yes; after the inquest, and when all possible evidence had been taken, everything was put straight.”
“At the inquest it was stated that no marks of footsteps could be traced in any direction?”
“The long drought we’ve had would render such a thing impossible, let alone the fact that Sandy ’s lodge stands right on the gravelled drive, without flower-beds or grass borders of any sort around it. But look here, Miss Brooke, don’t you be wasting your time over the lodge and its surroundings. Every iota of fact on that matter has been gone through over and over again by me and my chief. What we want you to do is to go straight into the house and concentrate attention on Master Harry’s sick-room, and find out what’s going on there. What he did outside the house on the night of the 6th, I’ve no doubt I shall be able to find out for myself. Now, Miss Brooke, you’ve asked me no end of questions, to which I have replied as fully as it was in my power to do; will you be good enough to answer one question that I wish to put, as straightforwardly as I have answered yours? You have had fullest particulars given you of the condition of Sandy ’s room when the police entered it on the morning after the murder. No doubt, at the present moment, you can see it all in your mind’s eye – the bedstead on its side, the clock on its head, the bed-clothes half-way up the chimney, the little vases and ornaments walking in a straight line towards the door?”
Loveday bowed her head.
“Very well. Now will you be good enough to tell me what this scene of confusion recalls to your mind before anything else?”
“The room of an unpopular Oxford freshman after a raid upon it by under-grads.,” answered Loveday promptly.
Mr. Griffiths rubbed his hands.
“Quite so!” he ejaculated. “I see, after all, we are one at heart in this matter, in spite of a little surface disagreement of ideas. Depend upon it, by-and-bye, like the engineers tunnelling from different quarters under the Alps, we shall meet at the same point and shake hands. By-the-way, I have arranged for daily communication between us through the postboy who takes the letters to Troyte’s Hill. He is trustworthy, and any letter you give him for me will find its way into my hands within the hour.”
It was about three o’clock in the afternoon when Loveday drove in through the park gates of Troyte’s Hill, past the lodge where old Sandy had met with his death. It was a pretty little cottage, covered with Virginia creeper and wild honeysuckle, and showing no outward sign of the tragedy that had been enacted within.
The park and pleasure-grounds of Troyte’s Hill were extensive, and the house itself was a somewhat imposing red brick structure, built, possibly, at the time when Dutch William’s taste had grown popular in the country. Its frontage presented a somewhat forlorn appearance, its centre windows – a square of eight – alone seeming to show signs of occupation. With the exception of two windows at the extreme end of the bedroom floor of the north wing, where, possibly, the invalid and his mother were located, and two windows at the extreme end of the ground floor of the south wing, which Loveday ascertained subsequently were those of Mr. Craven’s study, not a single window in either wing owned blind or curtain. The wings were extensive, and it was easy to understand that at the extreme end of the one the fever patient would be isolated from the rest of the household, and that at the extreme end of the other Mr. Craven could secure the quiet and freedom from interruption which, no doubt, were essential to the due prosecution of his philological studies.