The Secret of Chimneys (Superintendent Battle 1)

“I was late getting here—had not allowed enough time. Consequently I stopped the car climbed over the wall and ran across the park. When I arrived on the terrace, the whole house was dark and silent. I was just turning away when I heard a shot. I fancied that it came from inside the house, and I ran back, crossed the terrace, and tried the windows. But they were fastened, and there was no sound of any kind from inside the house. I waited a while, but the whole place was as still as the grave, so I made up my mind that I had made a mistake, and that what I had heard was a stray poacher—quite natural conclusion to come to under the circumstances, I think.”

“Quite natural,” said Superintendent Battle expressionlessly.

“I went on to the inn, put up as I said—and heard the news this morning. I realized, of course, that I was a suspicious character—bound to be under the circumstances, and came up here to tell my story, hoping it wasn’t going to be handcuffs for one.”

There was a pause. Colonel Melrose looked sideways at Superintendent Battle.

“I think the story seems clear enough,” he remarked.

“Yes,” said Battle. “I don’t think we’ll be handing out any handcuffs this morning.”

“Any questions, Battle?”

“There’s one thing I’d like to know. What was this manuscript?”

He looked across at George, and the latter replied with a trace of unwillingness:

“The memoirs of the late Count Stylptitch. You see—”

“You needn’t say anything more,” said Battle. “I see perfectly.”

He turned to Anthony.

“Do you know who it was that was shot, Mr. Cade?”

“At the Jolly Dog it was understood to be a Count Stanislaus or some such name.”

“Tell him,” said Battle laconically to George Lomax.

George was clearly reluctant, but he was forced to speak:

“The gentleman who was staying here incognito as Count Stanislaus was His Highness Prince Michael of Herzoslovakia.”

Anthony whistled.

“That must be deuced awkward,” he remarked.

Superintendent Battle, who had been watching Anthony closely, gave a short grunt as though satisfied of something, and rose abruptly to his feet.

“There are one or two questions I’d like to ask Mr. Cade,” he announced. “I’ll take him into the Council Chamber with me if I may.”

“Certainly, certainly,” said Lord Caterham. “Take him anywhere you like.”

Anthony and the detective went out together.

The body had been moved from the scene of the tragedy. There was a dark stain on the floor where it had lain, but otherwise there was nothing to suggest that a tragedy had ever occurred. The sun poured in through the three windows, flooding the room with light, and bringing out the mellow tone of the old panelling. Anthony looked around him with approval.

“Very nice,” he commented. “Nothing much to beat old England, is there?”

“Did it seem to you at first that it was in this room the shot was fired?” asked the superintendent, not replying to Anthony’s eulogium.

“Let me see.”

“Anthony opened the window and went out on the terrace, looking up at the house.

“Yes, that’s the room all right,” he said. “It’s built out, and occupies all the corner. If the shot had been fired anywhere else, it would have sounded from the left, but this was from behind me or to the right if anything. That’s why I thought of poachers. It’s at the extremity of the wing, you see.”

He stepped back across the threshold, and asked suddenly, as though the idea had just struck him:

“But why do you ask? You know he was shot here, don’t you?”

“Ah!” said the superintendent. “We never know as much as we’d like to know. But, yes, he was shot here all right. Now you said something about trying the windows, didn’t you?”

“Yes. They were fastened from the inside.”

“How many of them did you try?”

“All three of them.”

“Sure of that, sir?”

“I’m in the habit of being sure. Why do you ask?”

“That’s a funny thing,” said the superintendent.

“What’s a funny thing?”

“When the crime was discovered this morning, the middle one was open—not latched, that is to say.”

“Whew!” said Anthony, sinking down on the window seat, and taking out his cigarette case. “That’s rather a blow. That opens up quite a different aspect of the case. It leaves us two alternatives. Either he was killed by someone in the house, and that someone unlatched the window after I had gone to make it look like an outside job—incidentally with me as Little Willie—or else, not to mince matters, I’m lying. I daresay you incline to the second possibility, but, upon my honour, you’re wrong.”

“Nobody’s going to leave this house until I’m through with them, I can tell you that,” said Superintendent Battle grimly.

Anthony looked at him keenly.

“How long have you had the idea that it might be an inside job?” he asked.

Battle smiled.

“I’ve had a notion that way all along. Your trail was a bit too—flaring, if I may put it that way. As soon as your boots fitted the footmarks, I began to have my doubts.”

“I congratulate Scotland Yard,” said Anthony lightly.

But at that moment, the moment when Battle apparently admitted Anthony’s complete absence of complicity in the crime, Anthony felt more than ever the need of being upon his guard. Superintendent Battle was a very astute officer. It w

ould not do to make any slip with Superintendent Battle about.

“That’s where it happened, I suppose?” said Anthony, nodding towards the dark patch upon the floor.

“Yes.”

“What was he shot with—a revolver?”

“Yes, but we shan’t know what make until they get the bullet out at the autopsy.”

“It wasn’t found then?”

“No, it wasn’t found.”

“No clues of any kind?”

“Well, we’ve got this.”

Rather after the manner of a conjurer, Superintendent Battle produced a half sheet of notepaper. And, as he did so, he again watched Anthony closely without seeming to do so.

But Anthony recognized the design upon it without any sign of consternation.

“Aha! Comrades of the Red Hand again. If they’re going to scatter this sort of thing about, they ought to have it lithographed. It must be a frightful nuisance doing everyone separately. Where was this found?”

“Underneath the body. You’ve seen it before, sir?”

Anthony recounted to him in detail his short encounter with that public-spirited association.

“The idea is, I suppose, that the Comrades did him in.”

“Do you think it likely, sir?”

“Well, it would be in keeping with their propaganda. But I’ve always found that those who talk most about blood have never actually seen it run. I shouldn’t have said the Comrades had the guts myself. And they’re such picturesque people too. I don’t see one of them disguising himself as a suitable guest for a country house. Still, one never knows.”

“Quite right, Mr. Cade. One never knows.”

Anthony looked suddenly amused.

“I see the big idea now. Open window, trail of footprints, suspicious stranger at the village inn. But I can assure you, my dear Superintendent, that whatever I am, I am not the local agent of the Red Hand.”

Superintendent Battle smiled a little. Then he played his last card.

“Would you have any objection to seeing the body?” he shot out suddenly.

“None whatever,” rejoined Anthony.

Battle took a key from his pocket, and preceding Anthony down the corridor, paused at a door and unlocked it. It was one of the smaller drawing rooms. The body lay on a table covered with a sheet.