XLII
“Curiouser and curiouser,” said Puttler, who had literary leanings.
Dick heard his name shouted in an agitated voice, and, looking round, saw the butler running toward him, no longer sleepy-eyed, but very alert and white.
“What is the matter, Clover?”
“The maid… foolish girl only just told me… frightened!” gasped the old man, and pointed to the open study windows.
Dick walked quickly back, followed by Puttler. Drooping in his study chair was a plain-looking girl, wearing over her coarse nightdress a man’s overcoat; her lank hair falling over her shoulders, she presented a sight which at any other time would have moved Dick Alford to laughter.
“Now, Alice, tell Mr. Alford what you told me,” said the old butler, beside himself with anxiety.
It was some time before she could speak coherently, and then she told her amazing story. She had gone to bed in the servants’ quarters soon after eleven, with a sick headache. She had heard nothing of the scream, but at some time—which she placed with accuracy, having an alarm clock with a phosphorescent dial by her bedside, at 1.45—she heard “a terrible commotion” downstairs. Her room was immediately above Lord Chelford’s. She heard shouts and screams, the smashing of glass and the sounds of a struggle.…
“Hurry, hurry, woman!” said Dick, frantic with anxiety. “Downstairs, in his lordship’s room—are you sure?”
“Yes, sir,” whimpered the girl. “I simply dared not get up for fear I was murdered. I simply laid there and fainted and come to again.…”
Before she had finished, Dick was across the hall and running up the stairs two at a time. He tried the door of Harry’s room but it was bolted. He called him by name, and hammered on the panels, but there was no answer.
“We’d better break in the door,” said Puttler. “Have you got an axe?”
Mr. Glover went downstairs in search of the tool and returned with an axe and a case-opener. In a second the panel of the door was smashed and Dick peered in.
All the blinds save one were drawn, and the exception afforded sufficient light to enable him to examine the room. He gave one glance and his heart sank. The room was in hopeless confusion; the bedclothes were thrown on the floor, two mirrors, one a cheval glass, had been smashed; the uncurtained window was open. Dick put his hand through the hole in the panel and unbolted the door, and the two men ran in.
There were signs as of a terrible struggle. The wreckage of two chairs lay scattered about the floor. The table which had held the medicines was overturned and the floor was littered with broken glass and wet with the spilt medicines.
Puttler walked over to the bed. The mattress had been half dragged to the floor but the pillows were still in their place, and one of these and a part of the under sheet were smothered with blood.
Dick examined the open window. Three or four of the leaded panes were broken, and the steel rod that kept the windows open was bent as though a heavy weight had rested upon it. The ground was about fifteen feet below, and immediately under the window a large rhododendron bush had been broken as though by some heavy weight thrown upon it. Without hesitation, Dick threw his legs across the window sill, poised himself a moment, and dropped to the ground. There was blood on the leaves of the bush; he could find no footprints. Searching the ground, he came upon a smudge of blood against one of the buttresses of the wall.
By this time Puttler, who had chosen a more sedate method of descent, had joined him, and the two men went on, keeping to the paved path, and searched the ground for a further trail.
“This happened when we were in the grounds with the local police,” said Puttler.
He had been full of self-reproaches all night, and now Dick silenced him.
“It can’t be helped,” he said. “The fault is as much mine as yours. I ought to have expected this, after the killing of Thomas. Knowing what I know, I should have gone up to his room and stayed there with him, or at least outside. Poor old Harry! Poor old boy!”
His voice broke, and for a second there were tears in his eyes.
“What is this?”
The paving ended abruptly and was continued with a rolled gravel path, and there were marks here of something heavy being dragged along. These ceased as suddenly as the paving.
“Wait,” said Dick, as the solution dawned upon him.
He ran back along the wall of the wing, turned the corner, and stopped before the first of the library windows. It was open, and, drawing himself up, he dropped into the darkened room and pulled back the curtains. So far he had not examined the library; his practised eye, familiar with almost every book on the shelves, told him that somebody had been here. One section of the shelves had been almost cleared. A drawer in Harry’s desk had been broken open, and on the floor he found an empty cash box.
He made a brief and hurried survey, and, returning to the open by the window, he rejoined the detective and told him of his discovery.
Beyond the gravelled path and the dragging marks, all trace of Harry was lost. Ahead of them, at a distance of four or five hundred yards, was the river. To the left, and at this point out of sight, the Abbey ruins.
An hour’s search brought them no nearer to discovery, and Dick went back to his room to find the first of the dishevelled reporters stepping from his hired car.