The Master of the Priory (20 page)

In the clear light given off by the wax candles in their tall silver sconces, her face looked white and strangely troubled.

“The third person,” she whispered to herself. “Yes, of course he must be found. There must have been one—of course, there must have been one—but I must not think of that, or I shall go mad.”

T
HE
C
ARLYN
A
RMS
was the best inn in Carlyn village. It was a quaint black and white timbered, many gabled building, but its interior looked homely and pleasant. Through the big bow window in the bar there was a wonderful view of the country with a glimpse of the blue outlines of the Welsh hills in the distance.

Sir Oswald Davenant, coming out of the station, found himself nearly opposite this attractive hostelry, and after a moment's hesitation he walked in.

He had come down to Carlyn in pursuit of his resolve to clear Rosamond Treadstone of any share in the murder of John Winter, but, born detective though he had called himself, now that he was actually on the spot he felt at a loss how to set about his work. Rosamond's story gave him no help, and for the first time, as he stood on the threshold of the “Carlyn Arms'' and was confronted by a tall, young woman with a white face and tragic dark eyes, he felt inclined to despair.

He asked if he could have a room and lunch. Later on he was going to walk up to the Hall, but first he thought he would try whether it was possible to learn anything from local gossip.

At first it seemed unlikely that he would be successful. The young woman who waited upon him was singularly silent. She replied to his attempts at conversation in monosyllables, but with the advent of lunch the landlord arrived upon the scene and everything altered. He was only too anxious to talk to his customer, while the young woman busied herself among the glasses at the bar.

Sir Oswald began with the usual chat about the weather and the prospects of the crops, then by an easy transition he passed to the murder in the Home Wood.

The landlord pursed up his lips and shook his head.

“Ay, that was a bad job,” he said solemnly. “A bad job.”

“I suppose you knew them both?” Sir Oswald hazarded. “Winter and his wife, I mean.”

“I knew Jack Winter well enough,” the landlord assented. “He was here oftener than I wanted, or than was for his own good. But as for his wife, well, there was nobody about here that could be said to know her. As for me, I don't know that I ever set eyes on her. Now, Esther, my girl, there's plenty for you to do there.”

But the dark-eyed, young woman had already vanished, and the door behind the bar was closed firmly.

There was a queer look in the landlord's eyes as he glanced after her.

“She can't stand any talk about the murder,” he said with a nod of his head at the bar. “Always flies out when it is mentioned.”

“Why should she do that?” Sir Oswald questioned without much interest.

The landlord winked as he removed one of the dishes.

“Well, I have my own notions as to that, sir. Esther Retford was the only woman about here that knew Mrs. Winter. Her brother, Jim Retford, was the one that found the body. It sent him into a fit and he has never been the same since, poor lad, always subject to these attacks he is, and they call him ‘Softy Retford.' Esther would tell you that is what upsets her, but I have my own opinions.”

“It is enough to make her fight shy of the subject though,” Sir Oswald remarked. “But what is your theory, landlord?”

“Well, I don't know that I should go so far as to call it that, sir,” the man said doubtfully. “But—well, there's a boy at Retford's cottage that is the very spit of Jack Winter. They give out that it is the child of a married sister come down for a change of air. All I know is that Jack Winter won't ever be dead while that child is alive.”

Sir Oswald drew a deep breath. “Oh, that was it, was it? I didn't know Winter was that sort of a man.”

“He was pretty much all sorts that was bad,” the landlord returned emphatically. “A real rotten lot was Winter, sir. And it's often been in my mind that it was over Esther Retford, him and his wife quarrelled and she shot him; it would have all come out if there had been a trial, but now we shall never know.”

Sir Oswald's face darkened. He hated to hear this careless talk of Rosamond. He hated to remember that she had ever been another man's wife, the very thought that she had belonged to a low common boor such as Winter was agony to him. Yet he knew that he must brace himself, must prepared to hear her discussed, criticized, blamed even, in silence, if by any means he was to help her.

Meanwhile the landlord went on with his story, pleased with the interest it was exciting:

“The day before the murder Esther Retford went away suddenly, ran away, folks called it, then there had been some talk about her and Winter in the village—none too kind talk—and folks put two and two together. Then some six months ago Esther came back, and a month or two after that they brought this boy to the cottage. Old Retford preached us a nice tale about him, but we are not quite blind at Carlyn.”

“I am sure you are not,” agreed Sir Oswald, who was not ignorant of village ways. “But how do you come to have the young woman here, landlord?”

“Well, my wife is ill, sir, and she always liked Esther, and we have to have help of some kind, and the wife she said it would give the girl a chance, and she is cheap, and it don't do for any of us to be reckoning up other folk's past mistakes,” concluded the worthy man charitably.

Sir Oswald smiled a little as he got up, wondering whether charity or the fact that her services were cheap had most to do with procuring Esther Retford her situation. But her story, sordid and pitiful though it was, did not seem likely to help him much in his quest. He determined to walk up to the Hall and see whether he would be more successful with Frank Carlyn. He asked the way to the Home Wood, and set off at a brisk pace towards it catching one more glimpse of Esther Retford's white face as he left the inn.

It haunted his thoughts as he walked along. This was another ruined life to be laid to Winter's account. But as he entered the Home Wood he forgot everything but Rosamond; he pictured her moving about among its glades and mossy paths, a tall, gracious figure in her simple gowns with her crown of golden hair wound about her head.

Spring was later at Carlyn than at Porthcawel. The young larches in the Home Wood were just bursting into leaf, at their feet the wild hyacinths were fading away, mistily blue, while the rhododendrons and the gorse were in bud which later on would make the country-side one golden glory.

Sir Oswald came soon to the clearing in which the gamekeeper's cottage stood. He waited a moment and looked at it, its miniature gables and the creepers climbing its walls, and involuntarily he raised his hat and stood bareheaded. So it was here she had lived and suffered, the lady of his love. Here the martyrdom of her married life, the tragedy of its close, had been enacted.

It was evident that no one was living there now: the little garden was choked with weeds, long strands of ivy were drooping over the windows. The path where John Winter had lain dead was scarcely distinguishable from the tangled flowerbeds on either side. Sir Oswald gazed at it all as though he would wring the past secret from it.

Suddenly, as he waited, he heard a curious, strangled sound from among the bushes beside him; at first he thought it came from some animal in pain, but as it went on he became aware that it was distinctly human, a hoarse, persistent sobbing in which some distinguishable words seemed to mingle. It died away at last into a low moaning.

Sir Oswald stepped across quickly and parted the bushes. Something lay on the ground shaking and choking. At first it was difficult to distinguish anything, but as Sir Oswald's eyes grew clearer, he saw that it was a boy—a big, overgrown lad who crouched there in a forlorn, shapeless heap.

“What is the matter?” asked Sir Oswald gently.

The boy started violently, lay still for a minute, then slowly lifted a tear-stained, miserable face, and, after one stare at Sir Oswald, shambled to his feet and prepared to make off.

Sir Oswald caught his shoulder. “What is your name, lad? And what are you doing here?”

There was a series of wild jerks from side to side, and then the boy accepted capture.

“I come to look for feyther,” he explained sullenly.

“And who is feyther?” Sir Oswald questioned further, with an authoritative shake.

“Retford, the keeper,” the lad stammered. “Let me go, sir! He'll be looking for me. And it is a hiding I get if his dinner is late.”

He swung up a tin from the ground as he spoke, and Sir Oswald slackened his hold on the boy's arm.

“And what were you howling in that fashion for, young Retford?”

The lad returned no answer; ducking his head he made a sudden bolt for liberty and reached the open.

Sir Oswald made no effort to recapture him. He walked on in the direction of Carlyn Hall, frowning as he walked. So this lad was Esther Retford's brother, the boy who had been the first to find John Winter's body, and who had had fits and been softy like ever since, as the landlord had said. What brought the lad back to the scene of his terrible discovery, and what memory accounted for his sobbing fit? Sir Oswald could not see clearly yet, but some instinct seemed to warn him that the first thread that was to lead to the undoing of the mystery of John Winter's death had been placed in his hands to-day.

He felt as if Fate and something stronger than Fate was on his side and Rosamond's at last.

As he came in sight of the wicket-gate leading into the park, Fortune favoured him once more. Frank Carlyn came across the grass, moving slowly, with his head bent as if in thought. He stared in amazement when he saw Sir Oswald.

“Why, Davenant, what lucky wind has blown you here?” he cried.

But it was noticeable that he did not hold out his hand and that Sir Oswald did not offer his or pass to Carlyn's side of the gate. Instead he leaned over the top bar.

“I came on purpose to see you, Carlyn. I heard you had returned from your big game expedition.”

“Yes. We had bad luck there,” Carlyn grumbled. “But why on earth didn't you let a fellow know you were coming, Davenant? And where is your luggage? Have you left it at the station?”

“My bag is at the ‘Carlyn Arms,'” Sir Oswald said quietly. “I did not come to trespass on your hospitality, Carlyn. I want to claim your help.”

“My help?” Carlyn raised his eyebrows. “In what way?” he questioned briefly.

Davenant looked him squarely in the eyes.

“I have come here to find the murderer of John Winter.”

Carlyn's face became suddenly set like a mask.

“Why do you come to me for help?”

Sir Oswald's gaze did not relax.

“Because I believe that but for his murderer you were the last person to see John Winter alive.”

Carlyn turned his head aside.

“Very possibly I might have been,” he returned in a voice made intentionally indifferent. “I had just given the man notice. The coverts were in a disgraceful state, and when I spoke of it he was insolent.”

“Quite possibly. But it was not about the coverts you quarrelled,” Sir Oswald said in the same cool, level voice.

Carlyn swung round and faced him.

“What do you know about a quarrel? And what business is it of yours, anyhow? What have you to do with John Winter?”

“I have nothing whatever to do with John Winter,” Sir Oswald said slowly. “But it is my business to inquire into his murder, because I mean to marry his widow.”

T
HERE WAS
a moment's tense silence, then Carlyn spoke in a harsh, changed voice: “I cannot help you in any way. I must ask you not to speak to me of the matter again.” He turned on his heel.

Sir Oswald swung the gate aside and strode after him.

“Perhaps you will answer one question, Carlyn. Did you, in the heat of your quarrel, pick up John Winter's gun and, either by accident or intention, fire it at him?”

Carlyn's face was white with rage as he faced his interlocutor.

“Why don't you call me a murderer at once?” he demanded roughly. “But I will answer a fool according to his folly. I did not fire Winter's gun. I did not even see it. When I parted from him he was as well as you or I. Now are you satisfied? 

“Not quite,” Sir Oswald said quietly “How was it that you did not reassure Mrs. Winter as to your entire innocence in the matter when you met her in my house as Miss Martin?

Carlyn uttered a sharp, incredulous sound, then he stood still.

“I have said all I mean to say, Davenant. For anything else I must refer you to Mrs. Winter herself.”

“Perhaps I can answer my question,” Sir Oswald went on in a perfectly unmoved voice. “Because you believe that Mrs. Winter fired the fatal shot herself. Suppose I tell you that all along she has believed the same of you, and thought herself responsible only in so far as her friendship for you might have given Winter some cause for anger. It is to clear this matter up that I have come here, and I shall not rest until the real murderer is brought to justice.”

Carlyn's face altered indefinably; there was something very like pity in his eyes as he looked at the other man.

“You will never do that, old chap. Let me advise you, go back to the Priory and forget all about John Winter's—death.” He paused before the last word. It was obvious that he had been about to substitute another.

“I think not,” Sir Oswald remarked, tightening his lips. “My present intention is to go back to the inn and to devote myself to going over all the details of the case. I shall want your help later, Carlyn, and I shall call upon you to give it. Just now I am going up to the rectory. I want to see Miss Burford. I am the bearer of various messages from—Elizabeth.” He could not bear to think or speak of his lovely, dainty Elizabeth by the dead man's name, he had not yet accustomed himself to the new Rosamond.