The Loudwater Mystery/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV
MR. FLEXEN awoke next morning hopeful of news of the mysterious woman. But the letters addressed to him at the Castle and those brought over from the office of the Chief Constable at Low Wycombe brought none. After breakfast, still hopeful, he telephoned to Scotland Yard. No information had reached it.
He perceived clearly that the case was at a deadlock till he had that information. He was sure that it would come sooner or later, possibly from the neighbourhood, more probably from London. It was always possible that Mr. Carrington might discover that some other lawyer had handled an entanglement for Lord Loudwater. In the meantime, his work at the Castle was done. He had exhausted its possibilities. There was no reason why he should not return to his rooms at Low Wycombe. After having conferred with Inspector Perkins, he decided to leave one of the two detectives to continue making inquiries in the neighbourhood. He told James Hutchings that he would like his clothes packed, and went to the rose-garden to taken his leave of Olivia and thank her for her hospitality.
He found her looking very charming in a light summer frock of white lace with a few black bows set about it, and he thought that she seemed less under a strain than she had seemed the day before. He told her that he was returning to Low Wycombe; she expressed regret at his going, and thanked him for his efforts to clear up the matter of Lord Loudwater's death. They parted on the friendliest terms.
As he came away, Mr. Flexen thought it significant that, though she had thanked him for his efforts, she had made no inquiry about the result of them. It might be that she dreaded to hear that they were on the way to be successful.
He observed that James Hutchings, who watched over his actual departure, seemed less pale and haggard than he had been the night before. He could well believe that he was glad to see him going without having had him arrested.
As he drove through the park he told himself that Lady Loudwater and Mr. Manley between them would probably break down any case the police might bring against any one but the mysterious woman, and they might break down that. For his part, he was not going to give much time or attention to it till the mysterious woman had been discovered, and he did not think that he would be urged by Headquarters to do so after he had sent in his report, for, mindful of what he had told them of the unsatisfactory nature of Dr. Thornhill's evidence, Mr. Gregg in the Daily Wire and Mr. Douglas on the Daily Planet were dealing with the case in a half-hearted manner, though they were still clamouring with some vivacity for the mysterious woman.
As Mr. Flexen came out of the park gates he met William Roper on the edge of the West wood, stopped the car, and walked a few yards down the road to talk to him out of hearing of the chauffeur.
"I gather that you haven't told any one of what you saw on the night of Lord Loudwater's death; or I should have heard of it," he said.
"Not a word, I haven't," said William Roper.
"That's good," said Mr. Flexen in a tone of warm approval. "It might spoil everything to put people on their guard."
He was more strongly than ever resolved to prevent, if he could, the gamekeeper from setting afoot a scandal about Lady Loudwater which could be of no service to the police or any one else.
"Everybody says as James Hutchings did it, sir," said William Roper.
"H'm! And what do they say about the mysterious lady the papers are talking about—the lady you saw?"
"Oh, they don't pay no 'eed to 'er—not about 'ere, sir. They know Jim Hutchings," said William Roper contemptuously.
"I see," said Mr. Flexen.
"’Er ladyship and Colonel Grey, they still spends a lot of their time in the East wood pavilion. But now 'er ladyship's a widder, it's nobody's business but their own, I reckon," said William Roper.
"Of course not, of course not," said Mr. Flexen quickly, pleased to find that the ferret-faced gamekeeper attached so little importance to it. "I suppose people about here see that."
"They don't know about it. Nobody knows about it but me, and I don't tell everything I sees unless there's something to be got by it. A still tongue makes a wise 'ead, I say," said William Roper, with a somewhat vainglorious air.
"Quite right—quite right," said Mr. Flexen heartily. "Many a man's tongue has lost him a good job."
"You're right there, sir. But not me it won't," said William Roper with emphasis.
"I can see that. You've too much sense. Well, I shall keep in touch with you, and when the time comes you'll be called on. Drink my health. Good day," said Mr. Flexen, giving him half-a-crown.
He walked back to the car, pleased to have done Olivia the service of closing William Roper's mouth, at any rate for a time. He would talk, of course, sooner or later, probably sooner. But he might have closed his mouth for a fortnight.
William Roper walked on to the village and went into the "Bull and Gate." The village was simmering in a very lively fashion. The return of James Hutchings to his situation at the Castle was a fact with which it could not grapple easily. It was bewildered and annoyed.
William Roper had not, as he had assured Mr. Flexen, told what he had seen on the night of the murder of Lord Loudwater, but he had been dropping hints. He dropped more. He was a supporter of the theory that James Hutchings was the murderer because he desired to oust the father of James Hutchings from his post as head-gamekeeper. That was the reason also of his belief in James Hutchings' guilt. He was beginning to enjoy the interest he awakened as the storehouse of undivulged knowledge. When Mr. Flexen had supposed that he would remain silent for a fortnight, he had overestimated both his modesty and his reticence.
Later in the day the village was further upset by the behaviour of James Hutchings himself. He came into the "Bull and Gate" with an easy air, showed himself but little more civil than usual, and told the landlord that he had just arranged that the parson should publish the banns of his marriage with Elizabeth Twitcher on the following Sunday. The village was staggered. This was not the way in which it expected a man who would presently be tried and hanged for murder to behave.
In all fairness to James Hutchings, it must be said that he would not have acted with this decision of his own accord. Elizabeth had bidden him to it, urging that a bold front was half the battle. However grave her own doubts of his innocence might be, she was resolved that such doubts should, if possible, be banished from the minds of other people. Under her influence he was already becoming his old self as far as looks went. A shade of his usual ruddiness had come back; he was losing his haggardness.
With the going of Mr. Flexen there came a lull. His departure was a relief to Olivia, to Colonel Grey, and to James Hutchings. Doubtless he was still working on the case; but, working at a distance, he seemed less of a menace. All three of them seemed less under a strain. Olivia and Grey spent their hours together in a less feverish eagerness to make the most of them.
Even Helena Truslove, when Mr. Manley told her that Mr. Flexen had left the Castle, said that she was very pleased to hear it. She looked very pleased. Mr. Manley's sense of what was fitting restrained him from asking her the reason of this pleasure. He had, indeed, no great desire to hear the reason of it from her own lips. It was enough for him to guess that she was the mysterious woman. He felt no need of her full confidence.
The Castle seemed to be settling down to its old round, the quieter for the loss of Lord Loudwater. His heir in Mesopotamia had been informed of his death by cable. But no cable in reply had come from him. Mr. Manley remained at the Castle as secretary to Olivia, who was making preparations leisurely to leave it and settle down in a flat in London. Colonel Grey was recovering from his wound with a passable quickness. James Hutchings had come to look very much his old self. Thanks to the shock he had had and thanks to Elizabeth, he wore a more subdued air, and was much more amiable with his fellow-servants.
The Daily Wire, the Daily Planet, and the rest of the newspapers had let the Loudwater mystery slip quietly out of their columns. Mr. Flexen was waiting with quiet expectation for information about the unknown woman. Since the advertisement the papers had given her had failed to produce that information he had a London detective working on the life in London, before his marriage, of the murdered man. Mr. Carrington had found nothing among Lord Loudwater's papers in the office of his firm to throw any light on the matter.
The chief actors in the affair regarded the quiet turn it had taken with a timorous satisfaction. Not so William Roper; William Roper was thoroughly dissatisfied. He had been willing enough to hold his tongue, because by so doing his unexpected and damning appearance at the trial would be the more dramatic and impressive. But he was impatient to make that appearance, and chafed at the delay. Also, his prestige was waning. The village was losing interest in the mystery, and it no longer looked to him to drop hints as the holder of the secret. That did not prevent him from dropping them. He would bring up the subject of the murder in order to drop them. His acquaintances who wished now to talk about other things found this practice tiresome. They did not hide this feeling. Matters came to a climax one evening in the bar of the "Bull and Gate."
William Roper dragged the subject of the murder into a conversation on the high price of groceries, and then, as usual, hinted at the things he could say and he would.
John Pittaway, who had been leading the conversation about the high price of groceries, turned on him and said with asperity: "I don't believe as there's anything you can tell us as we don't know, or you'd 'ave told it afore this fast enough, William Roper."
"That's what I've been thinking this long time," said old Bob Carter, who had for over forty years made a point of agreeing with the most disagreeable person at the moment in the bar of the "Bull and Gate."
"Isn't there? You wait an' see. You wait till the trial," said William Roper.
"Trial? There won't be no trial. 'Oo's a goin' to be tried? They ain't agoin' to try Jim 'Utchings. It's plain that 'er ladyship 'as set 'er face against that. And, wot's more, they can't 'ave much to try 'im on, or they'd 'ave to do it, in spite o' wot she said," said John Pittaway in yet more disagreeable accents.
William Roper was very angry. This was not to be borne. Indeed, if John Pittaway were right, and there was to be no trial, where was his dramatic and impressive appearance at it? He had better be dramatic and impressive now.
"Who said as they were goin' to try Jim 'Utchings? I never did," he growled. "There was other people went to the Castle that night besides Jim 'Utchings, and that mysterierse woman the papers talked about."
"An' 'ow do you know?" said John Pittaway in a tone of most disagreeable incredulity.
"I know because I seed 'em," said William Roper.
"Saw 'oo?" said John Pittaway.
Then the whole story he had told Mr. Flexen burst forth from William Roper's overcharged bosom, the story with the embellishments natural to the lapse of time since its first telling. No less naturally in the course of the discussion which followed, he told also the story of the luckless kiss in the East wood, and the landlord pounced on that as the cause of the quarrel between Lord Loudwater and Colonel Grey at Bellingham. William Roper supported his contention with an embellished account of the interview with Lord Loudwater in which he had informed him of that kiss.
It was, indeed, his great hour, not as great as the hour he had promised himself at the trial, not so public, but a great hour.
He left the "Bull and Gate" at closing time that night a man, in the estimation of all there, whose evidence could hang four of his fellow-creatures, the great man of the village.
Next morning the village was indeed simmering, and the scandal rose and spread from it like a stench. That very afternoon Mr. Manley heard it from Helena Truslove, and the next morning Mr. Flexen received two anonymous letters conveying the information to him, and suggesting that Colonel Grey and the Lady Loudwater had between them made away with her husband. It is hard to say whether Mr. Manley or Mr. Flexen was more annoyed by William Roper's blabbing.
But there was nothing to be done. The scandal must run its course. Mr. Flexen did not think that it would find its way into the papers, local or London. None the less, he was alive to the danger that a sudden heavy pressure might be put on the police, and he might be forced to take ill-advised action, start a prosecution which would do Lady Loudwater infinite harm, and yet end in a fiasco which would leave the mystery just where it was. The one bright spot in the affair was that Lord Loudwater appeared to have left no friends behind him who would make it their business to see that he was avenged. As long as that avenging was everybody's business it was nobody's business.
Elizabeth Twitcher was no less disturbed than Mr. Flexen. She felt that Olivia ought to be informed of what was being said that she might be able to take steps to meet the danger. She took counsel with James Hutchings, who could not help feeling relieved by this diversion of suspicion, and he agreed with her that Olivia should be informed of the scandal at once. But it was an uncommonly unpleasant task, and she shrank from it.
Then a happy thought came to James Hutchings, and he said: "Look here: let Mr. Manley do it. He's her ladyship's secretary, and it's the kind of thing he'll do very well. He's a tactful young fellow."
"It would be a blessing if he did," said Elizabeth with a sigh. She paused and added: "You do speak differently about him to what you used to."
"Yes. I made a mistake about him like as I did about some other people," said James Hutchings, with a rather shame-faced air. "He behaved very well about seeing me here the night the master was murdered and saying nothing to the police about it. An' then he congratulated me very handsomelike on coming back as butler before Mr. Flexen."
"He would do it better than I should," said Elizabeth.
"Then I'll speak to him about it," said James Hutchings.
He paused a while to kiss Elizabeth, then went in search of Mr. Manley. He learned from Holloway that he had come in about twenty minutes earlier and was in his sitting-room. He went to him and found him looking through the MS. of the play he was writing, with an unlighted pipe in his mouth.
"If you please, sir, I thought I'd better come and tell you that they're saying in the village that Colonel Grey kissed her ladyship in the East wood on the afternoon of his lordship's death, and his lordship was informed of it and quarrelled with Colonel Grey and then her ladyship, and she and Colonel Grey made away with his lordship," said James Hutchings.
"I've heard something about it," said Mr. Manley, frowning, and he struck a match. "Who set this absurd story going?"
"William Roper, one of the under-gamekeepers, sir."
"William Roper? Ah, I know—a ferret-faced young fellow."
"Yes, sir. And we was thinking that her ladyship ought to know about it so as she can put a stop to it at once, and you were the proper person to tell her, sir," said James Hutchings.
On the instant Mr. Manley saw himself discharging this unpleasant but important duty with intelligence and tact, and he said readily: "I was thinking of doing so, and now that I know the lying rascal's name I can do it at once. The sooner this kind of thing is stopped the better."
"Thank you, sir," said Hutchings, and with a sigh of relief he left the room.
He had reached the top of the stairs when the door of Mr. Manley's room opened; he appeared on the threshold and said: "Will you send some one to tell William Roper to be here at nine o'clock tonight? And it wouldn't be a bad idea to drop a hint to any one you send that William Roper has got himself into serious trouble."
Mr. Manley thought quickly.
"Very good, sir," said James Hutchings, and he hurried down the stairs.
Mr. Manley did not see Olivia at once, for she was still in the pavilion in the East wood. But as soon as she returned, he sent a message by Holloway to her, that he wished to see her on important business. Holloway brought word that she would see him at once.
He found her in her sitting-room, gazing out of the window, and she turned quickly at his entrance with inquiring eyes.
"It's a rather unpleasant business, and the sooner it's dealt with the better," said Mr. Manley in a brisk, businesslike voice. "One of the under-gamekeepers has been spreading a scandalous and lying story about you and Colonel Grey, something about his kissing you in the East wood on the afternoon of Lord Loudwater's death, and he has gone on to suggest, or assert—I don't know which—that you and Colonel Grey had a hand in Lord Loudwater's death."
The blow she had been expecting had fallen, and Olivia paled and her mouth went dry.
"Which of the under-gamekeepers is it?" she said calmly but with difficulty, for her tongue kept sticking to the roof of her mouth.
"A ferret-faced, rascally-looking fellow, called William Roper," said Mr. Manley with some heat. Then, to save her the effort of speaking, he went on: "Of course you'd like him discharged at once. The sooner these people understand that their excitement about Lord Loudwater's death is not going to be held an excuse for telling lying stories the better. You will not be troubled by any more of them."
Olivia looked at him with steady eyes. She had recovered herself and was thinking hard. Mr. Manley's certainty about the right method of dealing with the matter was catching. It was better to show a bold front and at once. There was no time to consult Antony Grey.
"Yes. You're quite right, Mr. Manley. Gentle measures are of no use with this kind of scandal-monger. William Roper must be discharged at once," she said quietly.
"Perhaps you would like me to deal with him? It's rather a business for a man," Mr. Manley suggested.
"Yes, if you would," she said in a grateful tone.
"I will, as soon as I can get hold of him," said Mr. Manley cheerfully. "He'll make no more mischief about here," He went out of the room briskly.
His confidence was heartening. When the door closed behind him Olivia sobbed twice in the reaction from the shock of his announcement. Then she recovered herself and went quietly to her bath. She observed Elizabeth's sympathetic manner as she dressed her hair. Evidently all the servants as well as the villagers were talking about her. But for its possible, dangerous consequences, she was indifferent to their talk. She was now wholly absorbed in Grey; he was the only thing of any importance in her life.
Mr. Manley ate his dinner with an excellent appetite. He was pleased with the brisk, almost brusque, manner in which he had dealt with the matter of William Roper, in his interview with Olivia. If he had shilly-shallied and hummed and hawed about the scandal, it would have been so much more unpleasant for her. He thought, too, that his practical, common-sense attitude to the business would probably help her to take it more easily, and he was sure that he had advised the best measure to be taken with William Roper.
He was smoking a cigar in a great content, when at nine o'clock Holloway brought him word that William Roper had come. Mr. Manley bade him bring him to him at a quarter-past. He felt that suspense would make William Roper malleable, and he intended to hammer him. At thirteen minutes past nine he composed his face into a dour truculence, an expression to which the heavy conformation of the lower part lent itself admirably.
William Roper, looking uncommonly ill at ease, was ushered in by James Hutchings himself, and the butler had improved the thirteen shining minutes he had had with him by increasing to a considerable degree his uneasiness and anxiety.
Mr. Manley did not greet William Roper. He stood on the hearth-rug and glowered at him with heavy truculence. William Roper shuffled his feet and fumbled with his cap.
Then Mr. Manley said: "Her ladyship has been informed that you have been spreading scandalous reports in the village, and she has instructed me to discharge you at once." He walked across to the table, took the sheet of notepaper on which he had written the amount due to William Roper, dipped a pen in the ink, and added: "Here are your wages up to date, and a week's wages in lieu of notice. Sign this receipt."
He dipped a pen in the ink and held it out to William Roper with very much the air of Lady Macbeth presenting her husband with the dagger.
William Roper was stupefied. Mr. Manley, truculent and dramatic, cowed him.
"I never done nothing, sir," he said feebly.
"Sign—at once!" said Mr. Manley, gazing at him with the glare of the basilisk.
"I ain't agoing to sign. I ain't done nothing to be discharged. I ain't said nothing but what I seed with my own eyes," William Roper protested.
"Sign!" said Mr. Manley, tapping the receipt like an official in a spy play. "Sign!"
He was too much for William Roper. The conflict, such as it was, of wills ceased abruptly. William Roper signed.
Mr. Manley pushed the money towards him as towards a loathed pariah. William Roper counted it, and put it in his pocket. He walked towards the door with an air of stupefied dejection.
"Also, you are to be off the estate by twelve o'clock tomorrow. Loudwater is not the place for ungrateful and slanderous rogues," said Mr. Manley.
William Roper stopped and turned; his face was working malignantly.
"We'll see what Mr. Flexen's got to say about this," he snarled, went through the door, and slammed it behind him.