"You mean Harborough," said the doctor. "Wellyou'd better ask him if he knows anything. Somebody might have stolen one of his cords. But there are other pig-killers in the town, of course."
"Not on this side the town, there aren't," remarked another policeman.
"What is plain," continued the doctor, looking at Cotherstone and the others, "is that Kitely was strangled by this rope, and that everything on him of any value was taken. You'd better find out what he had, or was likely to have, on him, sergeant. Ask the housekeeper."
Miss Pett came from the inner room, where she had already begun her preparations for laying out the body. She was as calm as when Bent first told her of what had occurred, and she stood at the end of the table, the cord between her and her questioners, and showed no emotion, no surprise at what had occurred.
"Can you tell aught about this, ma'am?" asked the sergeant. "You see your master's met his death at somebody's hands, and there's no doubt he's been robbed, too. Do you happen to know what he had on him?"
The housekeeper, who had her arms full of linen, set her burden down on a clothes-horse in front of the fire before she replied. She seemed to be thinking deeply, and when she turned round again, it was to shake her queerly ornamented head.
"Well, I couldn't say exactly," she answered. "But I shouldn't wonder if it was a good dealfor such as him, you know. He did carry money on himhe was never short of money ever since I knew him, and sometimes he'd a fair amount in his pocketsI know, of course, because he'd pull it out, loose gold, and silver, and copper, and I've seen him take bank-notes out of his pocket-book. But he'd be very like to have a good deal more than usual on him tonight."
"Why?" asked the sergeant.
"Because he'd been to the bank this morning to draw his pension money," replied Miss Pett. "I don't know how much that would be, any more than I know where it came from. He was a close manhe'd never tell anybody more than he liked, and he never told me aught about that. But I do know it was what you'd call a fair amountfor a man that lives in a cottage. He went to the bank this noonhe always went once a quarterand he said this afternoon that he'd go and pay his rent to Mr. Cotherstone there"
"As he did," muttered Cotherstone, "yeshe did that."
"Well, he'd have all the rest of his money on him," continued the housekeeper. "And he'd have what he had before, because he'd other money coming in than that pension. And I tell you he was the sort of man that carried his money about himhe was foolish that way. And then he'd a very valuable watch and chainhe told me they were a presentation, and cost nearly a hundred pounds. And of course, he'd a pocket-book full of papers."
"This pocket-book?" asked the sergeant.
"Aye, that's it, right enough," assented Miss Pett. "But he always had it bursting with bits of letters and papers. You don't mean to say you found it empty? You did?very well then, I'm no fool, and I say that if he's been murdered, there's been some reason for it altogether apart from robbing him of what money and things he had on him! Whoever's taken his papers wanted 'em bad!"
"About his habits, now?" said the sergeant, ignoring Miss Pett's suggestion. "Did he go walking on the Shawl every night?"
"Regular as clock-work," answered the housekeeper. "He used to read and write a deal at nightthen he'd side away all his books and papers, get his supper, and go out for an hour, walking round and about. Then he'd come in, put on his slippersthere they are, set down to warm for himsmoke one pipe, drink one glass of toddythere's the stuff for itand go to bed. He was the regularest man I ever knew, in all he did."
"Was he out longer than usual tonight?" asked Bent, who saw that the sergeant had no more to ask. "You seemed to suggest that, when we came."
"Well, he was a bit longer," admitted Miss Pett. "Of course, he varied. But an hour was about his time. Up and down and about the hill-side he'd goin and out of the coppices. I've warned him more than once."
"But why?" asked Brereton, whose curiosity was impelling him to take a part in this drama. "What reason had you for warning him?"
Miss Pett turned and looked scrutinizingly at her last questioner. She took a calm and close observation of him and her curious face relaxed into something like a smile.
"I can tell what you are, mister," she said. "A law gentleman! I've seen your sort many a time. And you're a sharp 'un, too! Wellyou're young, but you're old enough to have heard a thing or two. Did you never hear that women have got what men haven'tinstinct?"
"Do you really tell me that the only reason you had for warning him against going out late at night wasinstinct?" asked Brereton. "Come, now!"
"Mostly instinct, anyhow," she answered. "Women have a sort of feeling about things that men haven'tleastways, no men that I've ever met had it. But of course, I'd more than that. Mr. Kitely, now, he was a townsmana London man. I'm a countrywoman. He didn't understandyou couldn't get him to understandthat it's not safe to go walking in lonely places in country districts like this late at night. When I'd got to know his habits, I expostulated with him more than once. I pointed out to him that in spots like this, where there's naught nearer than them houses at the foot of the hill one way, and Harborough's cottage another way, and both of 'em a good quarter of a mile off, and where there's all these coverts and coppices and rocks, it was not safe for an elderly man who sported a fine gold watch and chain to go wandering about in the darkness. There's always plenty of bad characters in country places who'd knock the King himself on the head for the sake of as much as Mr. Kitely had on him, even if it was no more than the chain which every Tom and Dick could see! And it's turned out just as I prophesied. He's come to it!"
"But you said just now that he must have been murdered for something else than his valuables," said Brereton.
"I said that if his papers were gone, somebody must have wanted them bad," retorted Miss Pett. "Anyway, what's happened is just what I felt might happen, and there he isdead. And I should be obliged to some of you if you'd send up a woman or two to help me lay him out, for I can't be expected to do everything by myself, nor to stop in this cottage alone, neither!"
Leaving the doctor and a couple of policemen to arrange matters with the housekeeper, the sergeant went outside, followed by the others. He turned to Cotherstone.
"I'm going down to Harborough's cottage, at the other end of the Shawl," he said. "I don't expect to learn aught much thereyetbut I can see if he's at home, anyway. If any of you gentlemen like to come down"
Bent laid a hand on Cotherstone's arm and turned him in the direction of his house.
"Brereton and I'll go with the sergeant," he said. "You must go homeLettie'll be anxious about things. Go down with him, Mr. Garthwaiteyou'll both hear more later."
To Brereton's great surprise, Cotherstone made no objection to this summary dismissal. He and Garthwaite went off in one direction; the others, led by the observant policeman who had found the empty pocket-book and recognized the peculiar properties of the cord, turned away in another.
"Where's this we're going now?" asked Brereton as he and Bent followed their leaders through the trees and down the slopes of the Shawl.
"To John Harborough's cottageat the other end of the hill," answered Bent. "He's the man they spoke of in there. He's a queer charactera professional pig-killer, who has other trades as well. He does a bit of rat-catching, and a bit of mole-catchingand a good deal of poaching. In fact, he's an odd person altogether, not only in character but in appearance. And the curious thing is that he's got an exceedingly good-looking and accomplished daughter, a really superior girl who's been well educated and earns her living as a governess in the town. Queer pair they make if you ever see them together!"
"Does she live with him?" asked Brereton.
"Oh yes, she lives with him!" replied Bent. "And I believe that they're very devoted to each other, though everybody marvels that such a man should have such a daughter. There's a mystery about that manodd character that he is, he's been well bred, and the folk hereabouts call him Gentleman Jack."
"Won't all this give the girl a fright?" suggested Brereton. "Wouldn't it be better if somebody went quietly to the man's cottage?"
But when they came to Harborough's cottage, at the far end of the Shawl, it was all in darkness.
"Still, they aren't gone to bed," suddenly observed the policeman who had a faculty for seeing things. "There's a good fire burning in the kitchen grate, and they wouldn't leave that. Must be out, both of 'em."
"Go in and knock quietly," counselled the sergeant.
He followed the policeman up the flagged walk to the cottage door, and the other two presently went after them. In the starlight Brereton looked round at these new surroundingsan old, thatched cottage, set in a garden amongst trees and shrubs, with a lean-to shed at one end of it, and over everything an atmosphere of silence.
The silence was suddenly broken. A quick, light step sounded on the flagged path behind them, and the policemen turned their lamps in its direction. And Brereton, looking sharply round, became aware of the presence of a girl, who looked at these visitors wonderingly out of a pair of beautiful grey eyes.
CHAPTER VI
THE MAYOR
Here, then, thought Brereton, was Gentleman Jack's daughterthe girl of whom Bent had just been telling him. He looked at her narrowly as she stood confronting the strange group. A self-possessed young woman, he said to himselfbeyond a little heightening of colour, a little questioning look about eyes and lips she showed no trace of undue surprise or fear. Decidedly a good-looking young woman, too, and not at all the sort of daughter that a man of queer character would be supposed to haverefined features, an air of breeding, a suggestion of culture. And he noticed that as he and Bent raised their hats, the two policemen touched their helmetsthey were evidently well acquainted with the girl, and eyed her with some misgiving as well as respect.
"Beg pardon, miss," said the sergeant, who was obviously anything but pleased with his task. "But it's like this, d'you see?your father, now, does he happen to be at home?"
"What is it you want?" she asked. And beginning a glance of inquiry at the sergeant she finished it at Bent. "Has something happened, Mr. Bent?" she went on. "If you want my father, and he's not in, then I don't know where he ishe went out early in the evening, and he hadn't returned when I left the house an hour ago."
"I daresay it's nothing," replied Bent. "But the fact is that something has happened. Your neighbour at the other end of the woodold Mr. Kitely, you knowhe's been found dead."
Brereton, closely watching the girl, saw that this conveyed nothing to her, beyond the mere announcement. She moved towards the door of the cottage, taking a key from her muff.
"Yes?" she said. "AndI suppose you want my father to help? He may be inhe may have gone to bed."
She unlocked the door, walked into the open living-room, and turning up a lamp which stood on the table, glanced around her.
"No," she continued. "He's not come inso"
"Better tell her, Mr. Bent," whispered the sergeant. "No use keeping it back, sirshe'll have to know."
"The fact is," said Bent, "Mr. Kitelywe're afraidhas been murdered."
The girl turned sharply at that; her eyes dilated, and a brighter tinge of colour came into her cheeks.
"Murdered!" she exclaimed. "Shot?"
Her eyes went past Bent to a corner of the room, and Brereton, following them, saw that there stood a gun, placed amongst a pile of fishing-rods and similar sporting implements. Her glance rested on it for only the fraction of a second; then it went back to Bent's face.
"I'd better tell you everything," said Bent quietly. "Mr. Kitely has been strangled. And the piece of cord with which it was done isso the police here sayjust such a piece as might have been cut off one of the cords which your father uses in his trade, you know."
"We aren't suggesting aught, you know, Miss Avice," remarked the sergeant. "Don't go for to think thatat present. But, you see, Harborough, he might have one o' those cords hanging about somewhere, anddo you understand?"
The girl had become very quiet, looking steadily from one man to the other. Once more her eyes settled on Bent.
"Do you know why Kitely was killed?" she asked suddenly. "Have you seen any reason for it?"
"He had been robbed, after his death," answered Bent. "That seems absolutely certain."
"Whatever you may say, you've got some suspicion about my father," she remarked after a pause. "Wellall I can say is, my father has no need to rob anybodyfar from it, if you want the truth. But what do you want?" she continued, a little impatiently. "My father isn't in, and I don't know where he isoften he is out all night."
"If we could just look round his shed, now?" said the sergeant. "Just to see if aught's missing, like, you know. You see, miss"
"You can look round the shedand round anywhere else," said Avice. "Though what good that will dowell, you know where the shed is."
She turned away and began taking off her hat and coat, and the four men went out into the garden and turned to the lean-to shed at the end of the cottage. A tiled verandah ran along the front of cottage and shed, and the door of the shed was at its further end. But as the sergeant was about to open it, the policeman of the observant nature made his third discovery. He had been flashing the light of his bull's-eye lamp over his surroundings, and he now turned it on a coil of rope which hung from a nail in the boarded wall of the shed, between the door and the window.
"There you are, gentlemen!" he said, lifting the lamp in one hand and pointing triumphantly to a definite point of the coiled cord with the index finger of the other. "There! Cut clean, toojust like the bit up yonder!"
Brereton pressed forward and looked narrowly at what the man was indicating. There was no doubt that a length of cord had been freshly cut off the coil, and cut, too, with an unusually sharp, keen-bladed knife; the edges of the severance were clean and distinct, the separated strands were fresh and unsoiled. It was obvious that a piece of that cord had been cut from the rest within a very short time, and the sergeant shook his head gravely as he took the coil down from its nail.
"I don't think there's any need to look round much further, Mr. Bent," he said. "Of course, I shall take this away with me, and compare it with the shorter piece. But we'll just peep into this shed, so as to make his daughter believe that was what we wanted: I don't want to frighten her more than we have done. Naught there, you see," he went on, opening the shed door and revealing a whitewashed interior furnished with fittings and articles of its owner's trade. "Well, we'll awaywith what we've got."
He went back to the door of the cottage and putting his head inside called gently to its occupant.
"Well?" demanded Avice.
"All right, misswe're going," said the sergeant. "But if your father comes in, just ask him to step down to the police-station, d'you see?I should like to have a word or two with him."
The girl made no answer to this gentle request, and when the sergeant had joined the others, she shut the door of the cottage, and Brereton heard it locked and bolted.
"That's about the strangest thing of all!" he said as he and Bent left the policemen and turned down a by-lane which led towards the town. "I haven't a doubt that the piece of cord with which Kitely was strangled was cut off that coil! Now what does it mean? Of course, to me it's the very surest proof that this man Harborough had nothing to do with the murder."