“You mean?” Mr. Brewster raised anxious eyebrows.
“Oh lord, yes, man! That’s where Colesborough was shot!”
“Indeed-I had no idea.” The embarrassed tone faded out.
Montagu Lushington went on talking about birds.
It was over at last. Colonel Anstruther and Mr. Patterson withdrew, presumably to the study. Mr. Lushington expressed a wish to see Mr. Brook, who presently appeared. Algy Somers and Cyril Brewster left the room.
XXVIII
The door of the butler’s pantry opened and Mr. Zero came in. He shut the door behind him and said in an easy, affable voice,
“Well, Sturrock, have you got them?”
Sturrock had turned round at the first sound, but he showed no surprise. He was expecting Mr. Zero, and expecting to make a very good thing out of him. There would be some haggling and chaffering, but he wasn’t going to come down in his price. He had the letters, and that was all the same as having Mr. Zero’s neck in a noose. What a bit of luck-what a really remarkable bit of luck his being first down to the yew walk. They had all come streaming away without so much as a thought for the letters and left him to find them where they had dropped, right down beside the hedge, under the window. Well, he’d got them cheap and he meant to sell them dear, and he didn’t mean to run any risks neither. No meetings in dark gardens for him, not if he knew it. If Mr. Zero wanted to talk, he could do it here where he wouldn’t be tempted to try any more of his fancy stuff. All this took no time. It was in his mind, a settled policy, all thought out and clear. He didn’t have to think about it. So when Mr. Zero said, “Have you got them?” he had his answer ready.
“I’ve got them all right, if you’ve got the money, sir.”
“Fair exchange,” said Mr. Zero. Then he looked across at the other door. “How private are we? What’s through there?”
Sturrock glanced over his shoulder.
“Private enough,” he said. “No one comes eavesdropping on me. There’s a passage between this and the servants’ hall, and they’ve got the wireless on there-military band programme. We’re private enough. Have you got the money?”
“I have got it,” said Mr. Zero. He put a hand in his pocket and pulled out a wad of notes. “Lucky I had them by me-for emergencies. You never know, do you? Quick, man-show me the letters!”
Sturrock’s eyes were on the notes. Money for jam, that’s what it was-big money, and not the last of it neither, because as long as he knew what he knew he could cut and come again. As long as he knew… He dived into an inside pocket and brought out a knotted green silk handkerchief checked with brown. It had been untied, and tied again, since Sylvia Colesborough had fastened the stolen letters in it, and the knots were loose and slipping. Sturrock pulled out the letters-there were no more than three of them-and pushed the handkerchief back into his pocket. He’d burn it presently. It would be better burned. It was the letters that were worth their weight in gold-and more.
Mr. Zero threw the bundle of notes down upon the News of the World which lay spread out on the pantry table.
“Count them while I have a look at the letters,” he said. He stretched out his left hand for them.
The butler hesitated, leaned forward, reached for the notes, and saw Mr. Zero’s right hand go down into his pocket again-a gloved right hand.
But it hadn’t been gloved just now-
Mr. Zero smiled, took a long step forward, and shot him dead.
There was very little noise. The pistol had been fitted with a silencer. This Mr. Zero removed.
Sturrock had fallen across the table, but the heavy body would probably slide down on to the floor. With his gloved hand Mr. Zero clasped the limp right hand about the pistol butt. He put the letters and the notes into his pocket. Then he left the room.
William gave the alarm ten minutes later, rushing white-faced into the study.
“Mr. Sturrock-oh, sir, he’s shot himself! Oh, sir!” And then an incoherent story of how he had tried the door of the butler’s pantry, the one on the kitchen side, and found it locked-“And when I couldn’t get an answer I went round by the other door-and he’s shot himself! Oh, sir, whatever made him do it!”
Inspector Boyce went quickly out of the room. The. study faced the terrace, with the dining-room behind it, and the butler’s pantry behind that. As he ran through the hall, he saw Algy Somers on his way downstairs. He ran on.
The door through which William had entered the pantry opened from the dining-room. It stood wide open now, and Inspector Boyce could see the heavy figure of the butler fallen in a heap beside the table. That he was dead was past all question. That it was suicide seemed likely enough. And if it was suicide, then perhaps they need not look any farther for the murderer of Sir Francis Colesborough.
The Inspector tried the second door, and found it locked. Then he went over to the telephone and rang up the police station.
XXIX
Not suicide?” said Colonel Anstruther.
“Well, I shouldn’t say so. It’s not impossible, you know.” Dr. Hammond’s voice was brisk. “I’m not going to say it’s impossible, but he was shot through the left temple, and he wasn’t a left-handed man. Work it out for yourselves. I don’t say it’s impossible that a man who’s going to commit suicide should take the pistol in his left hand and shoot himself through his left temple, but I don’t believe it’s ever happened. I mean, why should he? The thing’s absurd. Besides-”
“There’s this, sir,” said Inspector Boyce. He leaned across the writing-table at which Colonel Anstruther was sitting and laid upon the blotting-pad a green silk handkerchief checked with brown.
“Bless my soul-what’s that?”
“Handkerchief the missing letters were tied up in, sir. Lady Colesborough has identified it. You can see where the edge of the letters has marked it, and where the corners have been knotted.”
“Well?” said Colonel Anstruther, staring.
“Where are the, letters, sir? That’s the point.”
“He burnt ’em. How’s that, Brook?”
Mr. Brook shook his head.
“There was only a very small fire, sir,” said the Inspector-“pretty well dead. Sturrock had been out for the afternoon, you know. If he’d tried to burn the letters, there’d have been some ash about. There wasn’t any. And if he was Mr. Zero and he’d got back letters incriminating him by murdering Sir Francis, he’d have destroyed them right away, and destroyed the handkerchief too.”
“How do you know he didn’t destroy ’em at once?”
Marks on the handkerchief,“ said Inspector Boyce. ”Very soft silk, sir. See-there’s the shape of the envelopes quite plain, but the crease wouldn’t last tumbling about in his pocket like he had it-not in that soft silk, not above an hour or so.”
“What do you say to that, Brook?”
The four men were alone in the study. Mr. Patterson, whose firm would as soon have touched divorce as murder, had gone back to town outraged in every susceptibility. Mr. Montagu Lushington had not gone yet. He was, at the moment, in the drawing-room with his two secretaries.
“What do you say to that, Brook?”
Mr. Brook nodded slightly.
“The Inspector is quite right, Colonel Anstruther. That handkerchief would only keep the shape of the letters for a very short time. If they hadn’t been tied up in it for a good many hours, it wouldn’t have kept it at all. I don’t think it was suicide. Sturrock was the first on the scene of Sir Francis Colesborough’s murder after Mr. Somers and Miss Hardwicke ran up to the house. Lady Colesborough has said all along that she didn’t know what happened to the letters. Either she dropped them on her side of the hedge, or Mr. Zero dropped them on his side. The brown and green silk covering would make the packet very inconspicuous. By some accident Sturrock found them. I think it is quite impossible that he should have been Zero, but I think the letters told him who Zero was. I think he tried to make use of this knowledge, and I think it brought him to his death. I think Mr. Zero is a very dangerous man to blackmail.”