The Markenmore Mystery/Chapter 20
CHAPTER XX
VILLAGE GOSSIP
The Chief Constable had followed close upon Blick's heels when the detective walked into the gunsmith's shop, and he caught the whispered information. Not as accustomed as Blick was to reserve of speech and stolidity of expression he let out a word of surprise, scarcely checked. But Blick said nothing, and his only sign was one of assent to the gunsmith's proposition: together the three men went to the back of the shop, where a sharp looking young man was busy with account books.
"My manager, Mr. Waters," said the gunsmith. "Waters—just show these gentlemen that entry we looked up a while ago."
Waters produced a day-book, turned over its pages, ran his fingers over the lines, and silently pointed to an entry and some figures. Blick glanced at them.
"You remember selling a Webley-Fosbery automatic pistol to Mr. Harry Markenmore?" he asked, turning to the manager. "I mean—you sold it, personally?"
"I sold it," assented Waters. "I remember it well enough. He wanted a revolver—I recommended that."
"Would you know it again?" asked Blick.
Waters pointed to some figures and letters in the entry.
"That's the number," he said.
Blick produced the weapon he had picked up from beneath the Airedale terrier's busy feet.
"That it?" he enquired.
Waters turned the automatic pistol over in his hand, and looked carefully at the figures and letters stamped into the mount.
"That's it!" he answered. "Oh, yes—but I should have known it again without that."
"There's no doubt about it?" said Blick. "No possibility of any mistake? You're sure that is the pistol you sold, on that date, to Mr. Harry Markenmore?"
"There's not the slightest doubt," replied Waters confidently. "Take my oath of it!"
Blick put the automatic pistol back in his pocket and turned away.
"I hope that won't be necessary, Mr. Waters," he said. "However" here he looked at the gunsmith, who, with the Chief Constable, had stood by, watching and listening—"in the meantime keep all this to yourself—don't mention it to anybody. I may as well tell you, in confidence, that I found this thing—and it may have been lost by its owner—dropped, quite innocently. So—for the present—silence!"
The gunsmith and his manager nodded comprehendingly, and Blick and the Chief Constable went out into the street and walked some little distance in silence.
"Another complication!" muttered Blick at last. "And I suppose it's within bounds of possibility that Harry Markenmore shot his brother and threw this thing away in Deep Lane! Possible! but, I think, not at all probable. However, I'll soon make sure about that."
"How?" asked the Chief Constable.
"According to the medical evidence," answered Blick, "Guy Markenmore was shot dead at Markenmore Hollow about four o'clock in the morning. Now it was just about that hour that Sir Anthony Markenmore died at Markenmore Court, and I imagine that his younger son would be at his bedside. Harry Markenmore couldn't be in two places at once. Still, how came this automatic pistol in that badger-hole? That's got to be answered—somehow! For without a doubt, it was dropped in there by somebody who wanted to get rid of it."
The Chief Constable suddenly laid one hand on the detective's arm, and with the other pointed across the street.
"There's the very man who will know what Harry Markenmore was doing, and exactly where he was on the night of his father's death!" he exclaimed. "Come across!"
Blick looked in the direction indicated, and saw Braxfield. The old butler, very solemn and precise in his mourning raiment, was just emerging from a chemist's shop, sundry small parcels in his hands. He lifted startled eyes as the Chief Constable accosted him.
"Good evening, Braxfield," said the Constable, affably. "How are you in these trying times?"
Braxfield shook his head.
"Trying indeed they are, sir!" he replied. "I have felt this week, sir, as if the world was being turned upside down—my world at any rate! I never knew such times, sir, nor expected to know such!"
"You've certainly had a good deal of trouble at Markenmore, Braxfield," said the Chief Constable, sympathetically. "Must have been a time of great anxiety to everybody who'd lived a quiet life hitherto, as I think you've done."
Braxfield shook his head again, and looked as mournful as his garments.
"It's not been so much the trouble, sir, nor yet the anxiety, though both have been bad enough, as the continual surprises!" he answered. "One after the other they've come, till my poor head has fairly ached under them! Mr. Guy's coming—his father's death—that dreadful murder—hearing that my step daughter was married, secret-like, to Sir Harry, as we then thought him—this little boy being brought and presented as the real heir—and all the rest of it; dear me, sir, it's as if you didn't know whatever to expect next!"
"Ah, well, you'll get settled down in time, Braxfield," remarked the Chief Constable. "The little boy is, of course, a great surprise. How does Mr. Harry take the sudden change in his fortunes?"
"Mr. Harry, sir, and Miss Valencia," replied Braxfield, "have taken the matter in the best way possible. The little gentleman—Sir Guy, of course—has been welcomed in the warmest fashion; he is already made as much of by his uncle and aunt as if they'd known him from his cradle. Family feeling, sir, is strong in such houses as ours!"
"I suppose Mr. Harry was fond of his father, Sir Anthony?" asked the Chief Constable, with an almost imperceptible side-glance at Blick. "Very constant in attendance upon him, I believe?"
"Mr. Harry, sir," answered Braxfield, "was a very good son to his father, especially as Sir Anthony drew near his latter end. He was for ever at his bedside—never left him, except when Miss Valencia took his place."
"Was he with him when he died?" enquired the Chief Constable, coming at last to the question which Blick desired to have answered.
"He was, sir! Mr. Harry," said Braxfield, "was with my late master all that night, from the time Mr. Guy went away until Sir Anthony died—which he did in a light sleep. Yes, sir, Mr. Harry has nothing to reproach himself for in respect of his behaviour to his father—and I would have wished, sir, that he had come into the title and estates. But the law, I believe, is the law, sir, as you know better than I do—and all Markenmore, and the old title belongs to the little boy! Strange changes, sir, indeed, but you'll excuse me, gentlemen—I see our groom waiting for me in our trap, and I've still a little shopping to do."
The old butler hurried away after a polite bow, and the Chief Constable turned to Blick.
"That disposes of any question of Harry Markenmore's possible guilt," he murmured. "He spent that night by his father's bedside. So he couldn't have been at Markenmore Hollow."
"Never thought he had," said Blick. "But I think his automatic pistol was there. And now I'm going back to the Sceptre, to get my much-needed supper, and think a bit."
"Tomorrow's Sunday," observed the Chief Constable.
"I'm aware of it," replied Blick. "And as I have reason to believe that Sunday, amongst rustic communities, is a great day for gossip, I intend to hear what these Markenmore villagers are saying. I fancy they're saying a good deal amongst themselves."
"And how will you get to hear?—a stranger!" asked the Chief Constable with a laugh.
"Easily," replied Blick. "All village gossip either begins or ends at the village ale-house. I shall hear no end at the Sceptre, I think."
"One way of getting information, to be sure," assented the Chief Constable. "Well, Sunday or no Sunday, keep me posted up, Blick, if you hear of anything really pertinent."
Blick promised, and went off to Markenmore, and that night, of set purpose, he put his business clean out of his mind, and spent a quiet evening in reading the local histories and guide-books which he had pro cured from Selcaster when he first took up his quarters at the Sceptre. There was a great deal of interesting information in those books, and before he went to bed he had learned much about the Markenmore neighbourhood and the Markenmore family, whose pedigree, long and intricate, was given in full in one of the volumes. And next morning he stayed late in bed, and lounged mentally as well as physically, and it was not until after his mid-day dinner that he thought of his professional problem at all. It was recalled to him first when he strolled along the quiet street in the middle of the peaceful Sunday afternoon and came across Benny Cripps, the sexton, who sat on a stone bench outside the lych-gate of the churchyard, smoking his pipe. There was a look of invitation in Benny's eye, and Blick sat down by him.
"Taking a bit of rest from your Sunday labours, eh?" he said. "Nice spot to smoke your pipe in, this."
"Custom o' mine," answered Benny. "I do allays smoke a pipe or two o' bacca here of a Sunday arternoon, year in, year out—wet or fine. I do keep that up. If 'tis fine weather, along o' this ancient stone bench; if so be as 'tis wet, under that there lych-gate. And while I smokes, I meditates."
"On what?" asked Blick.
"Different subjects at different times," answered the sexton. "If so be as you wants to know the precise nature of my speckylations on this here occasion, I may tell 'ee as how when you come along, I was a-thinking of you!"
"Of me, eh?" said Blick. "And what about me?"
"Thinking as how if you're a-endeavouring to find out about that there murder, 'tis a long furrow as lies afore 'ee," replied Benny. "And main stiff soil to plough through! You ain't got much forrader, I reckon, since I see 'ee last?"
"No!" admitted Blick.
The sexton took his long clay pipe out of his lips, and rubbed his nose reflectively with the stem.
"Well!" he remarked, after a pause. "There ain't no wiser man in all this here parish than what I'm reckoned for to be, and I do allow as all this here mystery have a woman at the bottom of it—sure-ly!"
"A woman?" exclaimed Blick.
"Well, it med be wimmin," continued Benny. "Woman or wimmin, 'tis all one! Wimmin is pison! Ain't never been nothing go wrong since ever this here old world was created out of nothing, as it do tell in first chapter of Genesis, but wimmin was at the bottom of it! I tell 'ee, sir, the wimmin makes all the mischief—men is peaceable animals, but wimmin is oneasy critters."
"What would Mrs. Cripps say if she heard you?" asked Blick.
"Ain't no Mrs. Cripps!" retorted Benny. "Not that there ain't been! Been three on 'em, one time or another—buried 'em all, I did, and the last 'un it be five year ago. Never another, says I, when I covers her in—third time, says I, pays for all! They was tur'ble old toads, all three on 'em, and I fare to do deal better as a widow-man. If you ain't a wed man, don't 'ee ever go for to be one, my dear—'tain't wuth it!"
"I'll bear your advice in mind," said Blick. "You've evidently tried it pretty well. But I say—what woman do you think's at the bottom of this affair?"
"Med be one, and med be another," replied Benny. "I ain't at all comfortable in my mind about that there young Jezebel at the Dower House—deal too much mystery and queer goings-on about she to suit my disposition. Knowed her ever since she was the height o' sixpennorth o' copper, I have, and never knew her to do nothing but mischief. Reckon her's something to do wi' this affair, and keeps it so deep as my well. And then again there's that there Mistress Braxfield—I ain't no opinion o' she!"
"Why, what about her?" asked Blick. "Highly respectable woman, isn't she?"
Benny sniffed.
"Depends on what 'ee calls highly 'spectable," he answered. "Don't call it neither high nor yet 'spectable for a woman what used to keep a public-house to go marrying her gal, hole-and-corner like, to a young gentleman of old family! Low conduck, I calls it! But her thought as how there was a good chance of her daughter being my Lady Markenmore—that was her notion. And 'twouldn't surprise me if she wasn't at the bottom o' this, some way or another way. Wimmin, I tell 'ee, is allays at the bottom o' all unpleasantness. If 'ee was as well acquanted wi' the Bible as what I am—which ain't to be expected, considering as I be a pillar of the church—you'd know that what I tell 'ee is Gospel truth—so 'tis! Ain't you never heard tell about what Eve did to poor old Adam?"
"I've heard of that incident," admitted Blick. "Bit stiff, wasn't it?"
"I believe 'ee, my son! And so 'tis all through—the wimmin is allays deep down at the root o' all mischievousness," asserted Benny. "I could tell 'ee more tales o' wimmin nor you could find in a dozen books, and so I would, only it be time for our parson to come and catechize they young varmints o' children what you see trooping into my church, and I must go and keep order among they. But I tells 'ee straight, my dear, you seeming a decent and fair-spoken young feller, though no doubt a Londoner, which I don 't hold wi', that if you wants to get at the bottom o' this here, you go a-looking for wimmin! Wimmin is at the bottom of all battles, murders, and sudden deaths—and don't you forget it!"
Blick got no information out of this interview, but it made him think a great deal. He, too, was eminently suspicious about Mrs. Tretheroe. He had forced out of her an admission that von Eckhardstein had gone away with her full knowledge, and it was obvious that she had sent out her search-parties on the day after his fully arranged departure with intent to deceive the police authorities. But he found it difficult to believe that she had any knowledge of the murder; something told him that her first impetuous accusation of Harborough was genuine; genuine, too, he thought was her evident concern when she asked him, only the previous afternoon, if he thought that von Eckhardstein had killed Guy Markenmore. If, then, there was something which she knew, and was keeping back, what was it?—and what was her object in secrecy? From her, he turned to her maid; did Daffy Halliwell know anything? She gave one the impression, thought Blick, of being the sort of woman who had a habit, or the knack, of knowing things.
"And I should say," he muttered to himself, "she's a confoundedly clever hand at keeping them close when she does know them!"
That evening, tired of reading local history and topography, he went into the bar-parlour of the Sceptre and sat in a quiet corner. There were several men in the place, small farmers and village craftsmen; if they knew who Blick was, they gave small heed to his presence; their talk was free and unrestrained. For once Grimsdale was not behind his bar; the waitress from the little coffee-room officiated in his stead; she had little to do, and seeing that she looked lonely and somewhat bored, Blick, who was naturally amiable, leaned over the counter and talked to her. But he kept one ear open for anything that was said by the men behind him. His experience was that you may pick up a good deal from a chance remark or stray hint.
The men, of course, were discussing the events of the previous Monday night and Tuesday morning; they had been discussing them for six days, and they would go on discussing them for many days longer—long, Blick felt sure, beyond the proverbial nine.
"'Tis a 'nation queer thing to me," observed one man, "that such a matter can happen in a Christian country as that a young gentleman do get shot through's head, and die of that, and nobody don't know who done it! And what I says, frequent, since that do happen to he, I says again, and will say, and that be—what be the police folk about? Been me, I'd ha' found him as done that and hanged him so high as our church steeple, before now!"
"Why don't 'ee find him, then, Bob Gravus?" asked a cynical listener. "Bain't naught to prevent 'ee!"
"'Tain't my job, that!" retorted Bob Gravus. "I bain't a policeman. But," he added, with a sly wink in Blick's direction, "if I bain't mistook, I do allow as that there young gentleman be one o' these here powerful clever London men, what they calls detectives, and I do s'pose that he very likely know a deal more 'bout this than we do!"
Feeling the eyes of the company on his back, Blick turned towards the last speaker.
"Make yourself easy, my friend!" he said. "I know no more than you do, I think. I should be glad to know a lot more."
"But you'm what I do say, hain't you, mister?" suggested Bob Gravus. "I hear you was, anyway."
"Well, you can take it I am," admitted Blick. "But I can't see through a brick wall, any more than you can!"
"'Tis a true saying, that!" remarked one of the company, solemnly. "Faith, yes, the powers of mortal man be terrible limited, as you med say. Things there is as man that is born of a woman can do, and things there is as he cannot do. And there ain't never been a man so fur as I knows on us could see through a brick wall. A true remark!"
"Well," said another, "it be a main powerful mystery who done it, and as difficult a thing to find out as I reckon it 'ud be to lift Selcaster Cathedral wi' a jack-screw. And you can't go for to walk around the neighbourhood a-saying to one and then to an other 'Was it you as done this terrible wicked deed'—can't, nohow! 'Cause why? They'd all say they didn't!"
There was a murmur of general approval at this piece of wisdom. But a dark-faced man who sat in a corner and who had listened in silence up to that point, suddenly lifted his pot of ale, drank from it, and set it down again with an emphatic bang.
"Tell 'ee all what I do think, and no two ways about it!" he exclaimed. "This here shooting o' Master Guy Markenmore what you're all talking so free about and don't get no forrarder—I do think as how Mistress Braxfield, up to Woodland Cottage, did shoot he! That's what I do say. Mistress Braxfield, as kept this house once—she done it!"
Blick turned sharply from the bar; the other men turned towards the speaker; a dead silence fell over the room, broken at last by a solemn voice.
"You'm best to mind what you're a-saying of, Bill Carver!" it said. "There be law for them as slanders folk—you'll be took to 'sizes! Beside, Master Guy, he be shooted with a revolver. Mistress Braxfield ain't got no revolvers, and couldn't shoot one if she had!"
"Ain't she?" exclaimed Bill Carver, derisive and contemptuous. "Then I tells 'ee that she have! Many's the time I seen her a-shooting with that, early of a morning when I bin about them downs. I seen her shoot a score o' times at foxes what comes arter her chickens. And when you says who shot Master Guy Markenmore, I says Mistress Braxfield did shoot he! That's what I say—and don't care who hears me say it! Ain't I free to say what I do think?—'tis a free country!"