THE CRYSTAL BEADS MURDER (Murder Mystery for Inspector Stoddart). Annie Haynes

Чтение книги онлайн.

      Chapter II

       Table of Contents

      In her room at Holford Hall Anne Courtenay was twisting her hands together in agony. The Medchesters and their guests were amusing themselves downstairs in the drawing-room, the gramophone was playing noisy dance music. In the back drawing-room her grandfather and his sister were having their usual game of bezique. Anne had pleaded a headache and had gone to her room directly after dinner. The hands of the clock on the mantelpiece were creeping on to ten o'clock. In five minutes the hour would boom out from the old church on the hill. It was no use delaying, that would only make matters worse. She sprang up. Purposely to-night she had worn black. She threw a dark cloak round her, and picking up a pull-on black hat crushed it over her shingled hair. Then she unlocked a small wooden box on her dressing-table and took out a piece of notepaper. Across it was scrawled in Robert Saunderson's characteristic bold black writing: "To-night at the summer-house at ten o'clock." That was all. There was neither beginning nor ending. Not one word to soften the words that were an ultimatum. Anne's little, white teeth bit deeply into her upper lip as she read.

      The summer-house stood in a clearing to the right of the Dutch garden. From it an excellent view of the moors could be obtained with the hazy, blue line of the northern hills in the distance. It was a favourite resort with Lady Medchester for the picnic teas which she favoured. That Anne Courtenay should be giving an assignation there at this time of night seemed to her to show the depths to which she had fallen. Saunderson had left the Medchesters the day after the St. Leger. He had turned a resolutely deaf ear to all Harold's appeals, and his ultimatum remained the same. He would only treat with Anne. Anne herself must come to him, must plead with him. To her alone he would tell the only terms on which Harold could be saved.

      Anne drew her cloak round her as she stole quietly down the stairs to a side door. There was a full moon, but the masses of fleecy cloud obscured the beams; little scuds of rain beat in Anne's face as she let herself out. Through the open windows the laughter and the gaiety of her fellow-guests reached her ears. She crept silently by the side of the house into the shadow of one of the giant clumps of rhododendrons that dotted the lawn and bordered the expanse of grass between the house and the Dutch garden.

      Anne looked like a wraith as she flitted from one bush to another and finally gained the low wall that overlooked the Dutch garden. A flight of steps led down to the garden and from there, through a hand gate at the side of the rosery, a path went straight to the summer-house.

      It all, looked horribly dark and gloomy, Anne thought, as she closed the gate. She waited uncertainly for a minute. All around her she caught the faint multitudinous sounds of insect life that go on incessantly in even the quietest night. Already the leaves were beginning to fall. They lay thick upon the path and rustled under her feet; in the distance she caught the cry of some night-bird. Then nearer at hand there was a different sound. She stopped and cowered against a tree, listening. What was it? It could not be the cracking of a twig, footsteps among the withered leaves, the dead pine-needles that lay thick on the ground? It could not be anybody watching her--following her? Then a sudden awful sense of fear assailed her, a certainty that something evil was near her. For the time she was paralysed as she caught blindly at a low branch. She listened, shivering from head to foot. Yes, undoubtedly she could hear light footsteps, with something sinister, it seemed to her, about their very stealthiness. Yet, as the moon shone out from behind a passing cloud, there was nothing to be seen, no sign of any living thing or any movement. All was quiet, and as she stole softly to the summer-house, casting terrified glances from side to side, she did not see a figure standing up against the trunk of a tall pine near at hand, a face that peered forward, watching her every movement.

      She had expected to find Saunderson waiting for her--she told herself that he must be--but there was no one to be seen, and somewhat to her surprise the door of the summer-house was nearly closed. She stopped opposite; there was something sinister, almost terrifying, to her in the sight of that closed door, in the absence of any sound or movement. At last very slowly she went forward, halting between every step. Surely, surely, Saunderson must be waiting for her?

      "Mr. Saunderson," she whispered hoarsely, "are you there?"

      There came no faintest sound in answer; yet surely, surely she could catch the faint smell of a cigarette?

      Very softly, very gingerly she pushed open the door.

      "This," said Inspector Stoddart, tapping a paragraph in the evening paper as he spoke, "is a job for us."

      Harbord leaned forward and read it over the other's shoulder.

      "Early this morning a gruesome discovery was made by a gardener in the employ of Lord Medchester at Holford Hall in Loamshire. In a summer-house at the back of the flower garden he found the body of a man in evening-dress. A doctor was summoned and stated that the deceased had been shot through the heart. Death must have been instantaneous and must have taken place probably eight or nine hours before the body was discovered."

      "Look at the stop press news." Stoddart pointed to the space at the side.

      "The body found in the summer-house at Holford has been identified as that of a Mr. Robert Saunderson, who had been one of Lord Medchester's guests for the races at Doncaster but had left Holford the following day."

      "Robert Saunderson," Harbord repeated, wrinkling his brows. "I seem to know the name, but I can't place him. Isn't he a racing man?"

      "He would scarcely be a friend of the Medchesters if he wasn't," Stoddart replied, picking up the paper and staring at it as if he would wring further information from it. "Regular racing lot they belong to. Oh, I have heard of Saunderson. A pretty bad hat he was. He had a colt or two training at Oxley, down by Epsom. Picked up one or two minor races last year, but he's never done anything very big. Medchester's horses are trained at Burford's, East Molton. Lord Medchester's a decent sort of chap, I have heard. Anyway, a victory of his is always acclaimed in the North. He generally does well at Ayr and Bogside, and picks up a few over the sticks. Rumour credits him with an overmastering desire to win one of the classic races. His wife is a funny one--I fancy they don't hit it off very well. His trainer, Burford, is a good sort. His engagement to a cousin of Lord Medchester's was announced the other day."

      "Not much of a match for her, I should say."

      "Oh, quite decent. Burford makes a good thing out of his training. He's a second son of old Sir William Burford and half-brother of the present baronet. This Saunderson was pretty well known in London society too, and I have heard that he was one of Lady Medchester's admirers. I believe he was an American."

      "Anyway, so long as he wasn't English, he wouldn't have much difficulty in getting on in London society," Harbord remarked sarcastically. "A bachelor too, wasn't he?"

      "As far as anyone knows," Stoddart answered.

      A copy of "Who's Who" lay on the table. He pulled it towards him. "'Saunderson, Robert Francis,'" he read. "'Born in Buenos Aires 1888. Served in the Great War as an interpreter on the Italian frontier. Invalided out in May 1917. Clubs, Automobile, Junior Travellers.'"

      "H'm! Not much of a dossier--wonder why they put him in?" Harbord remarked.