The Hand in the Dark
head. Her small grey eyes, scanning the visitor at the door, showed both
surprise and deference. The butler of the moat-house was not in the
habit of mixing with the villagers, and by them he was accounted
something of a personage. He not only shone with the reflected glory of
the big house, but was respected on his own merit as a "snug" man, who
had saved money, and had a little property of his own.
"Is your husband at home, Mrs. Lumbe?" he asked, in response to her mute
glance of inquiry. He spoke condescendingly, like a man who recognized
the social gulf between them, but believed in being polite to the lower
orders.
"Yes, he is in, Mr. Tufnell. Will you come inside?"
The butler rubbed his boots carefully on the doormat, and followed the
woman down a narrow passage to a small sitting-room at the end of it,
where a man was sitting, reading a newspaper and smoking a pipe.
"Robert," said the woman, "here is Mr. Tufnell to see you."
The man looked up from his newspaper in some surprise, and got up to
greet his visitor. He was not in uniform, and his rough, ungainly figure
and round red face revealed the countryman, but from the crown of his
close-cropped bullet head to his thick-soled boots he looked like a
rural policeman. There was an awkward pose about him as he stood up--a
clumsy effort to maintain the semblance of an official dignity. The
questioning look his ferret eyes cast at the butler through the haze of
tobacco smoke which filled the room indicated his impression that the
visit was not merely a neighbourly call. Tufnell did not leave him in
doubt on the point.
"You are wanted at the moat-house at once, Sergeant Lumbe," he said
gravely. "A terrible crime has been committed. Mrs. Heredith has been
murdered."
"Murdered!" ejaculated the sergeant, looking vacantly across the table
at his wife, who had given vent to a cry of horror. "Murdered!" he
repeated, as though seeking to assure himself of the truth of the
butler's statement by a repetition of the word.
"Yes. She was shot in her bedroom a little while ago while the other
guests were at dinner. You must come at once."
Sergeant Lumbe laid his pipe on the table with a trembling hand. He was
overwhelmed by the magnitude of the catastrophe, and hardly knew what to
do. His previous experience of crime was confined to an occasional
arrest of the village drunkard, who invariably went with him
confidingly. His eye wandered to a bookcase in the corner of the room,
as if he would have liked to consult a "Police Code" which was
prominently displayed on one of the shelves. Apparently he realized the
indignity of such a course in the presence of a member of the public, so
he turned to Tufnell and said:
"I'll go with you, but I must first put on my tunic."
"Be as quick as you can," said the butler, taking a chair.
Sergeant Lumbe went into an inner room, where his wife followed him.
Tufnell heard them whispering as they moved about. Then Sergeant Lumbe
hastily emerged buttoning his tunic. There was an eager look on his
face.
"The wife has been saying that we ought to take her brother along," he
said. "He belongs to Scotland Yard. He's spending his holidays with us."
"Where is he?" asked Tufnell, impressed by the magic of the name of
Scotland Yard.
"He's just stepped over to the _Fox and Knot_ to have a game of
billiards, finding it a bit lonesome here, after London. Do you think we
might send for him and take him with us?"
"I think it would be a very good idea," said Tufnell. "But can he be got
at once?" he added, with a glance at the little clock on the
mantelpiece. "The sooner we return the better."
"The wife can bring him while I am changing my boots. Hurry down to the
_Fox_, Maggie, and tell Tom he's wanted at once."
"Don't tell him what it's for until you get him outside," hastily
counselled the butler as the policeman's wife was departing on her
errand. "Sir Philip won't like it if he hears that what happened
to-night was discussed in the _Fox_ tap-room."
The little clock on the mantelpiece had barely ticked off five
additional minutes when Mrs. Lumbe returned in a breathless state,
accompanied by a young man with billiard chalk on his coat and hands.
"This is my brother, Detective Caldew," said Mrs. Lumbe, between pants,
to the butler. "I told him about the murder, and we hurried back as fast
as we could."
"It's a horrible crime, and we must lose no time while there is still a
chance of catching the murderer," said the young man, regaining his
breath more easily than his stout sister. He brushed the billiard chalk
off his clothes as he spoke. "Let us go at once."
Tufnell cast a curious glance at the new-comer. He saw a man of about
thirty-five, tall, well-built and dark, with a clean-shaven face and
rather intelligent eyes under thick dark brows. He had some difficulty
in recognizing Detective Caldew as the village urchin of a score of
years before who had touched his cap to the moat-house butler as a great
personage, second only in importance to Sir Philip Heredith himself.
Tufnell was not aware that in the former village boy who had become a
London detective he was in the presence of a young man of soaring
ambition. Caldew had gone to London fifteen years before with the idea
of bettering himself. After tramping the streets of the metropolis for
some months in a vain quest for work, he had enlisted in the
metropolitan police force rather than return to his native village and
report himself a failure. At the end of two years' service as a
policeman he had been given the choice of transfer to the Criminal
Investigation Department of Scotland Yard. He had gladly accepted the
opportunity, and had shown so much aptitude for plain-clothes work that
by the end of another two years he had risen to the rank of detective.
Caldew thought he was on the rapid road to further promotion, and had
married on the strength of that belief. But another ten years had passed
since then, and he still occupied a subordinate position, with not much
hope of promotion unless luck came his way. And there seemed very little
chance of that. Caldew's professional experience had imbued him with the
belief that the junior officers of Scotland Yard existed for no other
purpose than to shoulder the blame for the mistakes of their official
superiors, who divided amongst themselves the plums of promotion,
rewards, and newspaper publicity. That, of course, was the recognized
thing in all public departments. Caldew found no fault with the system.
His great ambition was to obtain some opening which would bring him
advancement and his share of the plums.
He believed his opportunity had arrived that night. It had always been
his dream to have the chance to unravel single-handed some great
crime--a murder for choice--in which he alone should have all the glory
and praise and newspaper paragraphs. He determined to make the most of
the lucky chance which had fallen into his hands, before anybody else
could arrive on the scene. He had confidence in his own abilities, and
thought he had all the qualifications necessary to make a great
detective. He was, at all events, sufficiently acute to realize that
opportunity seldom knocks twice at any man's door.
The three men set out for the moat-house. At the butler's request
Sergeant Lumbe went ahead to summon the doctor, who lived on the other
side of the village green, and while he was gone Caldew drew the details
of the crime from his companion. Lumbe rejoined them at the footbridge
which led across the meadows into the Heredith estate, and they
proceeded on their way in silence. Sergeant Lumbe's brain--such as it
was--was in too much of a whirl to permit him to talk coherently;
Tufnell, habitually a taciturn individual, had been rendered more so
than usual by the events of the night; and Caldew was plunged into such
a reverie of pleasurable expectation, regarding the outcome of his
investigations of the moat-house murder, that the stages of his
promotion through the grades of detective, sub-superintendent, and
superintendent, flashed through his mind as rapidly as telegraph poles
flit past a traveller in a railway carriage. The crime which had struck
down one human being in the dawn of youth and beauty, turned another
into a murderer, and plunged an old English family into horror and
misery, afforded Detective Caldew's optimistic temperament such extreme
gratification that he could scarcely forbear from whistling aloud. But
that is human nature.
They passed through the wood, and crossed the moat bridge. The mist was
creeping out of the darkness on both sides of the moat-house, casting a
film across the faint light which gleamed from one or two of the heavily
shuttered windows. Caldew, pausing midway on the bridge to glance at the
mist-spirals stealing up like a troop of ghosts, asked his
brother-in-law if the moat was still kept full of water. He received an
affirmative reply, and walked on again.
A maidservant answered Tufnell's ring at the front door, and informed
him in a whisper that Sir Philip and Miss Heredith were in the
drawing-room. Thither they bent their steps, and found Musard awaiting
them near the door. He nodded to Sergeant Lumbe, whom he knew, and
glanced interrogatively at Caldew. Lumbe announced the latter's
identity.
"You had better come in here first," said Musard, opening the door of
the drawing-room and revealing the baronet and Miss Heredith sitting
within. Brother and sister glanced at the group entering the room.
"This is Detective Caldew, of Scotland Yard," Musard explained to them,
indicating the young man. "He is staying with Lumbe, who thought it
advisable to bring him."
"Have you told them everything?" Miss Heredith spoke to Tufnell. Her dry
lips formed the words rather than uttered them, but the old retainer
understood her, and bowed without speaking. "What do you wish to do
first, Detective Caldew?" she added, turning to him, and speaking with
more composure. She was quick to realize that he would take the lead in
the police investigations. A glance at Sergeant Lumbe's flustered face
revealed only too clearly that the position in which he found himself
was beyond his official capabilities.
Caldew stepped briskly forward. He was in no way embarrassed by his
unaccustomed surroundings or by the commanding appearance of the great
lady who was addressing him. He was a man who believed in himself, and
such men are too much in earnest to be diffident.
"I should like to ask a few questions first, madam," he said. "So far, I
have heard only your butler's version of what happened." Without waiting
for a reply he launched a number of questions, and made a note of the
replies in a pocket-book.
Musard, who assisted Miss Heredith to answer the questions, was rather
impressed by the quick intelligence the detective displayed in eliciting
all the known facts of the murder, but Sergeant Lumbe, who remained
standing near the door, was shocked to hear Caldew cross-questioning the
great folk of the moat-house with such little ceremony. He thought his
brother-in-law a very forward young fellow, and hoped that Miss Heredith
would not hold him responsible for his free-and-easy manner.
"Now I should like to commence my investigations," said Caldew,
replacing his pocket-book. "There has been too much time lost already. I
will start with examining the room where the body is, if you please."
"Certainly." Miss Heredith rose from her seat as she uttered the word.
"My dear Alethea!"--Musard's tone was expostulatory--"I will take the
detective upstairs. There is no need for you to come."
"I prefer to do so." Miss Heredith's tone admitted of no further
argument. She was about to lead the way from the room when she paused