Clouds of Witness (8 page)

"Hitherto," said Lord Peter, as they picked their painful way through the little wood on the trail of Gent's No. 10's, "I have always maintained that those obliging criminals who strew their tracks with little articles of personal adornment-here he is, on a squashed fungus-were an invention of detective fiction for the benefit of the author. I see that I have still something to learn about my job."

"Well, you haven't been at it very long, have you?" said Parker. "Besides, we don't know that the diamond cat is the criminal's. It may belong to a member of your own family, and have been lying here for days. It may belong to Mr. What's-his-name in the States, or to the last tenant but one, and have been lying here for years. This broken branch may be our friend-I think it is."

"I'll ask the family," said Lord Peter, "and we could find out in the village if anyone's ever inquired for a lost cat. They're pukka stones. It ain't the sort of thing one would drop without making a fuss about-I've lost him altogether."

"It's all right-I've got him. He's tripped over a root."

"Serve him glad," said Lord Peter viciously, straightening his back. "I say, I don't think the human frame is very thoughtfully constructed for this sleuthhound business. If one could go on all-fours, or had eyes in one's knees, it would be a lot more practical."

"There are many difficulties inherent in a teleological view of creation," said Parker placidly. "Ah! here we are at the park palings."

"And here's where he got over," said Lord Peter, pointing to a place where the
chevaux de frise
on the top was broken away. "Here's the dent where his heels came down, and here's where he fell forward on hands and knees. H'm! Give us a back, old man, would you? Thanks. An old break, I see. Mr. Montague-now-in-the-States should keep his palings in better order. No. 10 tore his coat on the spikes all the same; he left a fragment of Burberry behind him. What luck! Here's a deep, damp ditch on the other side, which I shall now proceed to fall into."

A slithering crash proclaimed that he had carried out his intention. Parker, thus callously abandoned, looked round, and, seeing that they were only a hundred yards or so from the gate, ran along and was let out, decorously, by Hardraw, the gamekeeper, who happened to be coming out of the lodge.

"By the way," said Parker to him, "did you ever find any signs of any poachers on Wednesday night after all?"

"Nay," said the man, "not so much as a dead rabbit. I reckon t'lady wor mistaken, an 'twore the [garbled] heard as killed t'Captain."

"Possibly," said Parker. "Do you know how long [garbled] have been broken off the palings over there?"

"A moonth or two, happen. They should 'a' bin put right, but the man's sick."

"The gate's locked at night, I suppose?"

"Aye."

"Anybody wishing to get in would have to waken you?"

"Aye, that he would."

"You didn't see any suspicious character loitering about outside these palings last Wednesday, I suppose?"

"Nay, sir, but my wife may ha' done. Hey, lass!"

Mrs. Hardraw, thus summoned, appeared at the door with a small boy clinging to her skirts.

"Wednesday?" said she. "Nay, I saw no loiterin' folks. I keep a look-out for tramps and such, as it be such a lonely place. Wednesday. Eh, now, John, that wad be t'day t'young mon called wi' t'motor-bike."

"Young man with a motor-bike?"

"I reckon 'twas. He said he'd had a puncture and asked for a bucket o' watter."

"Was that all the asking he did?"

"He asked what were t'name o' t'place and whose house it were."

"Did you tell him the Duke of Denver was living here?"

"Aye, sir, and he said he supposed a many gentlemen came up for t'shooting."

"Did he say where he was going?"

"He said he'd coom oop fra' Weirdale an' were makin' a trip into Coomberland."

"How long was he here?"

"Happen half an hour. An' then he tried to get his machine started, an' I see him hop-hoppitin' away towards King's Fenton."

She pointed away to the right, where Lord Peter might be seen gesticulating in the middle of the road.

"What sort of a man was he?"

Like most people, Mrs. Hardraw was poor at definition.

She thought he was youngish and tallish, neither dark nor fair, in such a long coat as motor-bicyclists use, with a belt round it.

"Was he a gentleman?"

Mrs. Hardraw hesitated, and Mr. Parker mentally classed the stranger as "Not quite quite."

"You didn't happen to notice the number of the bicycle?"

Mrs. Hardraw had not. "But it had a side-car," she added.

Lord Peter's gesticulations were becoming quite violent, and Mr. Parker hastened to rejoin him.

"Come on, gossiping old thing," said Lord Peter unreasonably.

"This is a beautiful ditch.

Look at my trousers!"

"It's a bit of a climb from this side," said Parker.

"It is. He stood here in the ditch, and put one foot into this place where the paling's broken away and one hand on the top, and hauled himself up. No. 10 must have been a man of exceptional height, strength, and agility. I couldn't get my foot up, let alone reaching the top with my hand. I'm five foot nine. Could you?"

Parker was six foot, and could just touch the top of the wall with his hand.

"I could do it-on one of my best days," he said, "with an adequate object, or after adequate stimulant."

"Just so," said Lord Peter. "Hence we deduce No 10's exceptional height and strength."

"Yes," said Parker. "It's a bit unfortunate that we had to deduce his exceptional shortness and weakness just now, isn't it?"

"Oh!" said Peter. "Well-well, as you so rightly say, that is a bit unfortunate."

"Well, it may clear up presently. He didn't have a confederate to give him a back or a leg, I suppose?"

"Not unless the confederate was a being without feet or any visible means of support," said Lord Peter, indicating the solitary print of a pair of patched 10s. "By the way, how did he make straight in the dark for the place where the spikes were missing? Looks as though he belonged to the neighbourhood, or had reconnoitred previously."

"Arising out of that reply," said Parker, "I will now relate to you the entertaining 'gossip' I have had with Mrs. Hardraw."

"Humph!" said Wimsey at the end of it. "That's interesting. We'd better make inquiries at Riddlesdale and King's Fenton. Meanwhile we know where No. 10 came from; now where did he go after leaving Cathcart's body by the well?"

"The footsteps went into the preserve," said Parker. "I lost them there. There is a regular carpet of dead leaves and bracken."

"Well, but we needn't go through all that sleuth grind again," objected his friend. "The fellow went in, and, as he presumably is not there still, he came out again. He didn't come out through the gate or Hardraw would have seen him; he didn't come out the same way he went in or he would have left some traces. Therefore he came out elsewhere. Let's walk round the wall."

"Then we'll turn to the left," said Parker, "since [missing] the side of the preserve, and he apparently went through there."

"True O King! and as this isn't a church, there's no harm in going round it widdershins. Talking of church, there's Helen coming back. Get a move on, old thing."

They crossed the drive, passed the cottage and then, leaving the road, followed the paling across some open grass fields. It was not long before they found, what they sought. From one of the iron spikes above them dangled forlornly a strip of material. With Parker's assistance Wimsey scrambled up in a state of almost lyric excitement.

"Here we are," he cried. "The belt of a Burberry! No sort of precaution here. Here are the toe-prints of a fellow sprinting for his life. He tore off his Burberry! he made desperate leaps-one, two, three-at the palings. At the third leap he hooked it on to the spikes. He scrambled up, scoring long, scrabbling marks on the paling. He reached the top. Oh, here's a bloodstain run into this crack. He tore his hands. He dropped off. He wrenched the coat away, leaving the belt clinging-"

"I wish you'd drop off," grumbled Parker, "You're breaking my collarbone."

Lord Peter dropped off obediently, and stood there holding the belt between his fingers. His narrow grey eyes wandered restlessly over the field. Suddenly he seized Parker's arm and marched briskly in the direction of the wall on the farther side-a low erection of unmortared stone in the fashion of the country. Here he hunted along like a terrier, nose foremost, the tip of his tongue caught absurdly between his teeth, then jumped over, and, turning to Parker, said: "Did you ever read
The Lay of the Last Minstrel?
"

"I learnt a good deal of it at school," said Parker. "Why?"

"Because there was a goblin page-boy in it," said Lord Peter, "who was always yelling 'Found! Found! Found!' at the most unnecessary moments. I always thought him a terrible nuisance, but now I know how he felt. See here."

Close under the wall, and sunk heavily into the narrow and muddy lane which ran up here at right angles to the main road, was the track of a sidecar combination.

"Very nice too," said Mr. Parker approvingly.

"New Dunlop type on the front wheel. Old tyre on the back. Gaiter on the side-car tyre. Nothing could be better. Tracks come in from the road and go back to the road. Fellow shoved the machine in here in case anybody of an inquisitive turn of mind should pass on the road and make off with it, or take its number. Then he went round on shank's mare to the gap he'd spotted in the daytime and got over. After the Cathcart affair he took fright, bolted into the preserve, and took the shortest way to his bus, regardless. Well, now."

He sat down on the wall, and, drawing out his notebook, began to jot down a description of the man from the data already known.

"Things begin to look a bit more comfortable for old Jerry," said Lord Peter. He leaned on the wall and began whistling softly, but with great accuracy, that elaborate passage of Bach which begins "Let Zion's children."

"I wonder," said the Hon. Freddy Arbuthnot, "what damn silly fool invented Sunday afternoon." He shovelled coals on to the library fire with a vicious [missing] waking Colonel Marchbanks, who said, "Eh?"

"Don't you grumble, Freddy," said Lord Peter, who had been occupied for some time in opening and shutting all the drawers of the writing-table in a thoroughly irritating manner, and idly snapping to and fro the catch of the French window. "Think how dull old Jerry must feel. S'pose I'd better write him a line."

He returned to the table and took a sheet of paper.

"Do people use this room much to write letters in, do you know?"

"No idea," said the Hon. Freddy. "Never write 'em myself. Where's the point of writin' when you can wire? Encourages people to write back, that's all. I think Denver writes here when he writes anywhere, and I saw the Colonel wrestlin' with pen and ink a day or two ago, didn't you, Colonel?" (The Colonel grunted, answering to his name like a dog that wags its tail in its sleep.) "What's the matter? Ain't there any ink?"

"I only wondered," replied Peter placidly. He slipped a paper-knife under the top sheet of the blotting-pad and held it up to the light. "Quite right, old man. Give you full marks for observation. Here's Jerry's signature, and the Colonel's, and a big, sprawly hand, which I should judge to be feminine." He looked at the sheet again, shook his head, folded it up, and placed it in his pocket-book. "Doesn't seem to be anything there," he commented, "but you never know. 'Five something of fine something'-grouse, probably. 'oe-is fou'-is found, I suppose. Well, it can't do any harm to keep it." He spread out his paper and began:

"
Dear Jerry,-Here I am, the family sleuth on the trail, and it's damned exciting-
"

The Colonel snored.

Sunday afternoon. Parker had gone with the car to King's Fenton, with orders to look in at Riddlesdale on the way and inquire for a green-eyed cat, also for a young man, with a side-car. The Duchess was lying down, Mrs. Pettigrew-Robinson had taken her husband for a brisk walk. Upstairs, somewhere, Mrs. Marchbanks enjoyed a perfect communion of thought with her husband.

Lord Peter's pen gritted gently over the paper, stopped, moved on again, stopped altogether. He leaned his long chin on his hands and stared out of the window, against which there came sudden little swishes of rain, and from time to time a soft, dead leaf. The Colonel snored; the fire tinkled; the Hon. Freddy began to hum and tap his fingers on the arms of his chair. The clock moved slothfully on to five o'clock, which brought tea-time and the Duchess.

"How's Mary?" asked Lord Peter, coming suddenly into the firelight.

"I'm really worried about her," said the Duchess. "She is giving way to her nerves in the strangest manner. It is so unlike her. She will hardly let anybody come near her. I have sent for Dr. Thorpe again."

"Don't you think she'd be better if she got up an' came downstairs a bit?" suggested Wimsey. "Gets broodin' about things all by herself, I shouldn't wonder. Wants a bit of Freddy's intellectual conversation to cheer her up."

"You forget; poor girl," said the Duchess, "she was engaged to Captain Cathcart. Everybody isn't as callous as you are."

"Any more letters, your grace?" asked the footman, appearing with the post-bag.

"Oh, are you going down now?" said Wimsey. "Yes here you are-and there's one other, if you don't mind waitin' a minute while I write it. Wish I could write at the rate people do on the cinema," he added, scribbling rapidly as he spoke. "
'Dear Lilian,-Your father has killed Mr. William Snooks, and unless you send me £1,000 by bearer, I shall disclose all to your husband.-Sincerely, Earl of Digglesbrake.'
That's the style; and all done in one scrape of the pen. Here you are, Fleming."