Back Aa

Mystery of the Downs

<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2> The search for the body began in the morning, at low tide. Inspector Murchison had come from Staveley to superintend, and from the landing place he and Sergeant Westaway directed the operations of the Ashlingsea fishermen who had been engaged to make the search. Some of the townspeople who had walked up from the town to witness the proceedings thought that the body would be swept out to sea and never recovered, but the fishermen, with a deeper knowledge of a treacherous piece of sea from which they wrested their living, shook their heads. If the gentleman had fallen in near the deep water of the landing-place the undercurrent might have carried him out into the Channel, but there were too many reefs and sand-banks running out from the headland, and too many cross-currents, to let a body be carried out to sea. They gave it as their opinion that the body would be found before high tide, either in one of the shallows near the big sand-bank, a quarter of a mile out, or in one of the pools between the reefs whose jagged, pointed edges showed above the surface of the sea nearer the headland. The sea lay grey and still under an October sky of dull silver. The boats, as they came from Ashlingsea, put in at the landing-place to receive the instructions[287] of the police officers standing there, and then started to search. There were two rowers in each boat, and standing at the stern was a man holding the rope to which the grappling irons were attached. Slowly and mechanically the boats were rowed out some distance to sea, and then rowed back again. The men in the stern watched the ropes in their hands for the first sign of tautness which would indicate that the grappling irons had hooked in to something. Frequently one of the irons caught on a piece of rock, and when this happened the boat had to be eased back until the irons could be released. The boats searching further out, near the sand-bank, used nets instead of grappling irons. Crewe, who had driven over in his car from Staveley, after watching this scene for some time, turned back to the road in order to put up his car at Cliff Farm. Marsland had not accompanied him. The young man had motored over with his uncle, who, after hearing from his nephew a full account of the events of the previous night, had insisted on participating in the search for the missing man. Sir George Granville, on arriving at the headland, had scrambled down the cliff with some idea of assisting in the search, and at the present moment was standing on the landing-place with Inspector Murchison, gesticulating to the rowers, and pointing out likely spots which he thought had escaped their attention. Crewe, on regaining his car, found Marsland leaning against it, contemplating the scene before him with indifferent eyes. He nodded briefly to the detective, and then averted his eyes. Crewe explained his intention regarding the car, and Marsland said he might as[288] well go down with him. He got up into the front seat with the same listlessness that had characterized his previous actions, but did not speak again till they reached the farm. At the house Crewe and Marsland met Detective Gillett, who had gone there to store his bicycle preparatory to watching the operations of the fishermen searching for the body. "I have had a pretty busy time since you came along to us last night," he said, referring to the visit of Crewe and Marsland to Ashlingsea police station to report the fall of Brett over the cliff. "We got the money—£12,000 altogether. There was £8,000 in the motor-boat and £4,000 here in the bottom of the old clock case, as you said." "What about the girl?" asked Crewe. "Was she there?" Detective Gillett looked in the direction of Marsland before replying. The young man, with the same air of detachment that had marked his previous actions, had wandered some distance down the gravel-walk, and was carelessly tossing pebbles from the path at some object which was not apparent to the two men in the porch. "I found her searching along the cliffs with a lantern," said Gillett, in a low voice. "She was looking for Brett; she told me that she had heard a scream and she thought he must have fallen over accidentally. I didn't enlighten her. Poor thing, she is half-demented. She has got it into her head that she is responsible for some document or paper which Brett had given into her safe-keeping, and which she handed back to him[289] last night at his request before he went to the farm to look for the money." "Doesn't she know what is in the paper?" asked Crewe quickly. "Her mind is in such a state that it is useless to question her. She keeps repeating that it was to be opened in the event of his death. It was only after great difficulty I ascertained from her that she had given the paper back to Brett last night. I am anxious that Brett's body should be recovered in order to ascertain what its contents are." "I should think the girl would have a fair idea of the contents." "I think so too, but she is not in a fit state to be questioned at present, and may not be for some time. The strain has been too much for her. In my opinion she is in for a severe illness." "Where is she now?" "At the station. Of course, I had to take her into custody on a charge of attempting to steal this money. Whether the public prosecutor will go on with the charge or whether he will bring any other charge of a more serious nature against her remains to be seen." Marsland, who had abandoned his stone throwing, had strolled back to the porch in time to hear Gillett's last remarks. "It is a strange thing to find a girl of her type in love with such a scoundrel," he said. "Quite a common thing," said Detective Gillett, speaking from the experience of the seamy side of life which comes under the attention of Scotland Yard. "There are some women brought up in good surroundings who seem to be attracted irresistibly to scoundrels.[290] You never know what a woman will do. By the by, it is a good thing, Mr. Marsland, that you did not hit him when you fired at him last night. If you had killed him I should have had to arrest you, and the case would have had to go to a jury. Of course, there is no doubt how it would have ended, but it would have been an unpleasant experience for you." "I shouldn't have minded that," was the young man's answer. Gillett regarded this declaration as bravado, and merely continued: "As it is, you are virtually responsible for his death in frightening him over the cliff, but the law takes no account of that." "I should prefer to have shot him," said Marsland. "Ah, well, I must get away and see what they are doing," said the Scotland Yard detective, who obviously disliked Marsland's attitude. "I suppose I'll see you again during the day?" When he had gone off towards the cliffs Crewe turned to Marsland and said: "I am going to have another look at the place—now that this case is concluded." He entered the house and Marsland followed him. The interior looked more sombre and deserted than ever. The fortnight which had elapsed since the tragedy—during which time the place had been left untenanted—had intensified the air of desolation and neglect that brooded over the empty rooms, had thickened the dust on the moth-eaten carpets and heavy old furniture, and gave an uncanny air to the staring eyes of the stuffed animals which hung on the wall in[291] glass cases—dead pets of dead occupants of Cliff Farm. Crewe and Marsland looked through the house, entered the room where the grandfather clock stood, and Crewe pointed out the mark of the bullet which Marsland had fired at Brett the previous night. In his excitement he had fired too high, and the bullet had gone into the wall about eight feet from the floor, between two photographs which hung on the wall. One of these photographs was of James Lumsden, the eccentric old owner of Cliff Farm, who had broken his neck by falling downstairs. The other was Frank Lumsden, whose dead body had been found in the house by Marsland thirteen days before. "That was the second time I missed Brett," said Marsland, staring at the bullet hole in the wall between the photographs. "The second time?" echoed Crewe. "Do you mean that he was the burglar at whom you fired a week ago?" "Yes. I came into the room just as he was getting out of the window. I caught only a glimpse of him but I knew him instantly. I had a presentiment that he was near and that is why I happened to be wearing my revolver." "What was his object in breaking into the house?" "He wanted to be sure that I was the man he had to fear just as I wanted to be sure that he was the man I wanted to kill. An hour before I had broken into his rooms at 41 Whitethorn Gardens, for the purpose of making sure about him. I saw his photograph there, and that is all I wanted." "And it was you and not he who was in the house[292] when Mrs. Penfield called out that the police were in the house?" "Yes, that was I. I didn't understand why she called out, but it served as a warning to me that she expected him. And so when I got back to my uncle's I got my revolver out of the drawer. The first I heard of him being in England was when Inspector Murchison told us, although I was prepared in a way after finding that Lumsden had been here. Murchison spoke of him as Brett, but I did not know him by that name. So to make sure I got Mrs. Penfield out of the house by a hoax on the telephone and broke into the place in her absence. I did not know that it was you who came back with her." "But his object in breaking into your room was probably to get some article of yours which would help to bring suspicion against you with regard to Lumsden's death. No doubt it was he who took the glasses which were subsequently found in the well. As you lost a pair of glasses in the storm and arrived at the farm without them, Miss Maynard probably mentioned the fact to Brett. Did you tell her that you had lost your glasses that night?" "I forget. Oh, yes, I did! I mentioned it when we were looking at the cryptogram on the stairs." "He was certainly an enterprising scoundrel." "Don't you wish to know why I wanted to kill him?" asked the young man after a pause. "I do, very much." "I feel that I must speak about it," he said. "And you are the only man to whom I can. You heard Murchison tell us that Lumsden and Brett, as he called himself, had been tortured by the Germans but that[293] they gave away no information. That is their version; let me tell you the truth about them. Both of them belonged to my company in France. Lumsden had been under me for four or five months and I had nothing against him. He was a fairly good soldier and I thought I could depend upon him. Powell—or Brett—had come over with a recent draft. One night when I was holding a short advanced trench to the south of Armentières I sent Lumsden and Brett out on a listening patrol. The trench we were holding was reached through a sap: it was the first of four or five that were being dug as jumping off places for an attack on the German trenches. "It was just about midnight that I sent Lumsden and Brett out and they ought to have been back by 2 a. m. It was the middle of summer and dawn commenced about 3 a. m. Either they had been captured or had lost their way and were waiting for dawn. When it was light enough to see the landscape, two figures appeared on the parapet of a German trench in front about three hundred yards away. They were calling and gesticulating to us. At that distance it was impossible to make out what they were saying, but from their gestures we gathered that the Germans had deserted the trench and it was ours if we liked to go over and occupy it. "It came as such a surprise that none of us stopped to think; but if we had stopped no one would have thought of treachery. The men went over the parapet—every one of them. It was a race—they were laughing and joking as to who should be there first. And when we were within forty yards or so there was a volley from rifles and machine guns. The bullets[294] seemed to come from every quarter. The men were taken by surprise and they dropped almost before they had time to realize what had happened. I was one of the first to go down but it was only a bullet in the leg. As I lay where I fell I was struck by another bullet in the shoulder. Then I crawled to a shell hole for shelter. I found seven of my men there, all of whom had been hit. "We were not there long before the Germans commenced to lob hand grenades into the shell hole. How I escaped death I do not know: it was an awful experience to see those murderous bombs coming down and to be powerless to escape from them. I saw several of my poor men with limbs blown off dying in agony, and from what I learned subsequently much the same thing had happened in other shell holes where men had crawled for shelter. Out of my company of 82—we were not at full strength, and I had only three second lieutenants besides myself—I was the only one to come through alive. And I lay in a state of semi-collapse in the shell hole for two days before being rescued when our men drove the Germans out of their trenches." "A dreadful experience," said Crewe sympathetically. "These two miserable loathsome creatures, Brett and Lumsden, to save their own lives, had beckoned my company into the trap. They had been captured by the Germans, and no doubt were tortured in order to make them do what they did. But as British soldiers they should have died under torture rather than be guilty of treachery. The memory of how my poor men died without having a chance to defend themselves[295] haunts me day and night. I hear their voices—their curses as they realized that they were the victims of a horrible act of treachery, their cries and moans in the agony of death." He sat down on the upturned clock case and buried his face in his hands. <hr class="chap" /> [296] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.