Annie Haynes Premium Collection – 8 Murder Mysteries in One Volume. Annie Haynes

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СКАЧАТЬ as he joined Grimes, who was already outside and getting into his cart.

      “No more can’t we, Sir Arthur; how anyone could bring himself to harm a pleasant body like her, as had always a good word for every one, I can’t think. We shall know the rights of it soon now, I hope.”

      “Ready, Arthur?” Garth’s tone was crisp as he took the reins from the groom.

      The feeling of oppression had gone from the air now, the threatening storm had apparently passed over for the time being, little puffs of wind were stirring the leaves and dashing the raindrops from the branches into Sir Arthur’s face as they drove down the avenue.

      “This is an awful thing, Garth!” he began. “The very idea of it has upset Hilda terribly. The poor girl is so sensitive that she fancies that because Nurse Marston was summoned to the Manor to attend to her she is in some way responsible for her fate. I have tried to argue it out of her before, but you saw how little use it was to-night.”

      “Yes, I saw!” Garth’s tone was dry and uninterested apparently. His horse’s head absorbed all his attention.

      Arthur was silent for a minute.

      “I cannot help thinking that we shall find it is all a mistake, and that with their imaginations fired by the story of Nurse Marston’s disappearance they have taken some rubbish—there was sure to be lots of it in a hollow tree—for a body, or that it is some other poor thing.”

      “Do you think so?” Garth said curtly as they passed the lodge.

      “Why, yes,” replied Arthur. “I can’t believe a ghastly thing like that could happen to an inmate of our house and that we should know nothing of it all this time. Though if it really should be Nurse Marston she must have gone out to meet some one.”

      Garth did not reply, and after waiting a minute or two Arthur proceeded:

      “But I don’t believe it is; I cannot but think when we get there that we shall find that it is some mistake.”

      It was impossible to drive very near the Lovers’ Oak; at the entrance to the wood they had to get out and make the rest of their way on foot. They were by no means alone; the news had spread like wildfire through the village of Lockford, and, late though the hour was, most of the inhabitants were evidently making their way to the scene.

      Around the Lovers’ Oak quite a large crowd had already assembled, but were kept back by the police, who were now in possession, and in the middle of the cleared space of ground, Superintendent Stokes and Dr. Grieve were bending over something that lay on the ground—something over which as the doctor rose the superintendent reverently threw a mackintosh sheet. Garth and Arthur made their way through, the people respectfully parting for them.

      Arthur beckoned to the superintendent.

      “Who—what is it, Stokes?” he asked.

      The officer’s quick eyes darted from the young man’s agitated face to the grave, impassive one of his companion.

      “I am afraid that there can be no doubt that it is the missing woman, Sir Arthur. As clear a case of murder as I have ever had to do with, I should say.”

      “I don’t believe it can be Nurse Marston—it must be some mistake!” said Sir Arthur, clinging to his cherished shibboleth of comfort.

      The superintendent shook his head.

      “I don’t think there is much doubt, Sir Arthur.”

      At this moment Dr. Grieve, who was looking worn and shaken as he helped himself to something from a flask, caught sight of them. He hurried across.

      “A terrible thing, this, Sir Arthur—terrible! I—really I don’t know what to say about it. Accustomed as I am to seeing a good deal of the seamy side of life, I was not prepared for this; and it has upset me more than I can tell you.”

      He was moving away, but Arthur buttonholed him.

      “You know what they are saying, doctor—that it is Nurse Marston? But—”

      “It is Nurse Marston safe enough, Sir Arthur. I attended her for an illness three years ago and I can’t be mistaken. She is in her uniform too, and wearing her chatelaine—only the notebook is missing. Yes, it is poor Mary Marston; and if I could get hold of the scoundrel who put her in that tree”—his hands working nervously—“I am an old man, but it would go hard if I couldn’t—”

      “How could she get there—” Arthur was beginning, and as he spoke four men with a stretcher passed them and made their way to the stricken oak.

      Dr. Grieve turned to them, and Sir Arthur watched them with fascinated eyes as they carefully raised the body and laid it on the stretcher. As they moved off on their way to the village mortuary, followed by the police superintendent, Dr. Grieve looked round.

      “Who would have thought there was that great hollow in the old Lovers’ Oak, Sir Arthur?” he said.

      The young man raised himself with a start and glanced across; the proud old tree that had been for years the delight and the trysting-place of Lockford sweethearts presented a sorry spectacle now. One great branch had been torn from the parent tree and lay maimed and broken on the ground, and the big hollow right down the great trunk was plainly visible. Standing there with its gaping, open wound it looked like an accusing witness of the crime and of the secret which the hand of Heaven had brought to light.

      “I suppose that if we had ever thought about it at all we might have guessed that it would be hollow.”

      “Somebody knew, anyhow,” the doctor said grimly. “Well, well, poor thing, her troubles are over!”

      Garth Davenant moved forward to the tree and examined it, the policeman left in charge walking round with him.

      “Who could it have been? How was it done? He must have been a pretty strong man to get her up there alone,” Arthur remarked.

      The doctor shrugged his shoulders.

      “As to how it was done it is impossible to say at present; there will have to be an autopsy.”

      Sir Arthur’s bewilderment and horror seemed to increase.

      “For a woman to be done to death outside the Manor, with a houseful of people, as you may say, within earshot, seems to be incredible!”

      “Yes, it does!” the doctor assented. “I’m not so sure that it was outside the house, either, mind you, Sir Arthur,” he added significantly.

      “What do you mean?”

      “Well, so far as I can see there is nothing to indicate that she had left the house when she came by her death—nothing at this first cursory examination, you understand. She had on her house shoes and her indoor uniform. She could not have gone far out of the house in such a fashion, if indeed she went at all.”

      Even by the uncertain light of the lanterns, the old man could see that Sir Arthur’s face was white to the lips.

      “That could not be, doctor,” he said passionately, answering the meaning underlying the speech. “I tell you that it was absolutely impossible that such a СКАЧАТЬ