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

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СКАЧАТЬ to expect him at Holford again?"

      "Good Lord, no!" his lordship said impatiently. "You might have knocked me down with a feather when I heard he had been shot in the summer-house; matter of fact, he had no encouragement from me to come again. On further acquaintance I didn't exactly take a fancy to Saunderson. Thought he was a bit of a bounder. Still, I don't want to talk about that now the poor chap's been done in. But you are asking."

      "Precisely." The detective glanced at his notes and made a hieroglyphic entry. "Now, I want to know whether he had any sort of a quarrel with any of your other visitors--any woman got a down on him?"

      Glancing at him as he answered, Harbord caught a curious, momentary gleam in Lord Medchester's eyes.

      "He wasn't exactly a favourite, but they all seemed friendly enough together," he replied, ignoring the latter half of the question. "Besides, most of 'em had gone away. If they had wanted to murder one another, they could have done it in town; no need to come down here."

      "Any possible love-affair with anyone at Holford?"

      "Oh, Lord, I should think not!" he said with a laugh that sounded a bit forced in Stoddart's ears. "I shouldn't think Saunderson was that sort, getting a bit long in the tooth. Besides, there was nobody here he could have got soppy about. All of 'em married and not the kind that are looking about to get rid of their husbands."

      "Nobody unmarried?" the inspector queried. "Not that that matters. The married ones are generally the worst."

      "Yes, there I am with you. They are if they take that way. But you are talking about the unmarried ones. The only one in the lot was my cousin, Miss Courtenay, and she is engaged to my trainer, Michael Burford--no eyes for anyone else; damned nuisance sometimes, don't you know! Be a bit more interesting in a year or two. I made the remark to Saunderson, I remember."

      "What did he say?"

      "Oh, nothing much. Merely laughed. There wasn't much he could say. Anybody could see it."

      Stoddart got up. "Well, marriage doesn't make much difference to some of them. I think the best thing I can do is just to have a look round at the summer-house and then at the body. Perhaps you would let me have a list of the house-party later on?"

      "I'll have one made," Lord Medchester promised, getting up and taking a position before the fireplace. "And if there's anything else we can do you've only to let us know. It's no joke having a man murdered at the back of your own garden."

      That seemed to be all there was to be got out of Lord Medchester and, as Stoddart observed to Harbord, it was not very illuminating.

      The doctor could only tell them two things--first, that death had probably occurred some nine or ten hours before the body was discovered, which would place the time round about ten o'clock the preceding evening; and that, secondly, the automatic had not been fired close at hand. The murderer, according to Dr. Middleton, had probably stood outside the summer-house and fired through the open doorway.

      Stoddart drew his brows together as he and Harbord walked across the lawn to the Dutch garden.

      "Queer case!" the younger man ventured.

      The inspector nodded.

      "We'll just have a look at the summer-house before it gets too dark, and interview the local superintendent. And then it strikes me we may as well toddle back to town in the morning and investigate Saunderson's doings. I fancy we are more likely to hit on the clue there than here."

      "I don't know," Harbord said slowly. "Of course he came here to meet some one."

      "Naturally!" the inspector assented. "One hardly imagines that he travelled down for the sole purpose of being murdered. But the two questions that present themselves, and which I fancy we shall have some difficulty in answering are these: who did Saunderson come to meet, and why did he come to Holford for the meeting?"

      They were crossing the Dutch garden now. Harbord looked all round before he answered.

      "Through that gate at the side I suppose our way lies, sir. With regard to your first question, I think it is pretty obvious the person Saunderson came to meet must be some one in the Hall, either a resident or a visitor. And he came, I should imagine, with some very definite object. If it should be a love-affair it must have been an illicit one. Therefore I should make a few careful inquiries about any married women who may be in the house. As far as I have ascertained they have a pretty good houseful now, as large, if not larger, than the one they had for the St. Leger. If there should be anyone here at the present time who was included in the Doncaster party, I should look up that person's antecedents."

      "Well reasoned, Alfred. But"--the inspector looked at him with a wry smile--"we have no proof that the murderer was a woman. As a matter of fact I should say it is quite as likely, if not more likely, to have been a man. Money or love, and in love I include jealousy. As far as my experience goes nine-tenths of the murders committed are committed for one or other of these motives. In this case I think financial difficulties are just as likely to have led to the death as an illicit love-affair."

      "I wonder if they searched the place thoroughly?"

      Stoddart shrugged his shoulders.

      "You don't need me to tell you that when a place is used for tea fairly often anything may be found there. Might be a dozen clues that mean nothing. This is our way, I presume."

      He unlatched the gate at the right-hand side of the Dutch garden. They heard voices as they went along the path to the summer-house.

      The inspector frowned as he saw the downtrodden grass.

      "Done their best to destroy any clue there might have been, of course."

      The summer-house stood on a little knoll in the midst of the clearing; all around it the rhododendrons that formed the sides of the Dutch garden had spread and were pressing closely.

      Superintendent Mayer and another man, apparently occupied in staring at the summerhouse, turned as the detectives approached.

      "I am pleased to see you, Inspector Stoddart," the superintendent began. "This is a terrible job. We can't make anything of it ourselves. 'Tain't believable that anybody hereabouts would have done a thing like this."

      "It is pretty obvious that somebody did, superintendent," the inspector said dryly. "Still it is more than likely it was not a native of Holford. This is where the body was found, I suppose. Can you show me just how it lay?"

      "Yes, I can." The superintendent stepped into the summer-house. "He lay right on his back, did the corpse. His head was over here," indicating a spot by the nearest leg of the rustic table. "His feet, they were right there in the doorway. Seemed as if he had been standing there, or maybe on the step. And I should say them as he was expecting came right on him, maybe by a way he wasn't looking for them."

      The inspector surveyed the place where the dead man had lain in silence for a minute. Then, standing on the step, he looked round.

      "It wouldn't have been very difficult for anyone to take him unawares. The rhododendrons come right up on all sides except the front, it seems to me. But it rained last night in town. I expect it was the same here. How did your unexpected assailant see to aim at his victim?"

      The superintendent stared at him.

      "I don't know. But there was a СКАЧАТЬ