The Summons Part 59

"There will have to be an inquest then?" he asked.

"Aye, but there wull."

"In a case of this kind," Sir Chichester suggested, "it would be better if it could be avoided."

"But it can't," answered Dr. McKerrel bluntly. "And for my part, I tell you frankly, Sir Chichester, I have no great pity for poor neurotic bodies like the young lady upstairs. If she had had a little of my work to do, she would have been too tired in the evening to think about her worries." He looked at the disconsolate Baronet with a sudden twinkle in his eye. "Eh, man, but you'll get all the publicity you want over this case."

Sir Chichester had no rejoinder to the quip; and his unwonted meekness caused McKerrel to relent. He stopped at the door, and said:

"I'll give you a hint. The coroner can cut the inquest down to the barest necessary limits, if he has got all the facts clear beforehand.

If he has got to explore in the dark, he'll ask questions here and questions there, and you never know, nor does he, what he's going to drag out to light in the end. But let him have it all clear and straight first! There's only one character I know of, more free from regulations and limitations and red-tape than a coroner, and that's the police-sergeant who runs the coroner. Goodday to you."

A telegram was brought to Martin Hillyard whilst McKerrel was yet speaking; and Hillyard read it with relief. Mario Escobar had been taken that morning as he was leaving the hotel for the morning train to London. He was now on his way to an internment camp. So that complication was smoothed out at all events. He agreed with Sir Chichester Splay that it would be prudent to carry out McKerrel's suggestion at once.

"I will make the doc.u.ment out," said Sir Chichester importantly. Give him a little work which set him in the limelight as the leader of the Chorus, and nothing could keep down his spirits. He took a sheet of foolscap, a blotting pad, a heavy inkstand, and a quill pen--Sir Chichester never used anything but a quill pen--to the big table in the middle of the hall, and wrote in a fair, round hand:

"The case of Mrs. Croyle."

and looked at his work and thought it good.

"It looks quite like a _cause celebre_, doesn't it?" he said buoyantly.

But he caught Martin Hillyard's eye, and recovered his more becoming despondency. Harry Luttrell came in as the baronet settled once more to his task. He laid a s.h.i.+ning key upon the table and said:

"I found this upon the lawn. It looked as if it might be the key of Mrs.

Croyle's room."

It was undoubtedly the key of a door. "We'll find out," said the baronet. Harper was sent for and commissioned to inquire. He returned in a few minutes.

"Yes, sir, it is the key of Mrs. Croyle's room." He laid it upon the table and went out of the room.

"I suppose it is then," said Harry Luttrell. "But I am a little puzzled."

"Oh?"

"It wasn't lying beneath Mrs. Croyle's window as one might have expected. But at the east side of the house, below the corridor, and almost in front of the gla.s.s door of the library."

Both of his hearers were disturbed. Sir Chichester took up the key, and twisted it this way and that, till it flashed like a point of fire in the sunlight; as though under such giddy work it would yield up its secret for the sake of peace. He flung it on the table again, where it rattled and lay still.

"I can't make head or tail of it," Sir Chichester cried. Martin Hillyard opened his mouth to speak and thought better of it. He could not falter in his belief that Stella had destroyed herself. The picture of her that morning in Surrey, with the lamps burning in her room and the bed untouched, was too vivid in his memory. What she had tried to do two years ago, she had found the courage to do to-day.

That was sure. But it was not all. There was some one in the shadows who meant harm, more harm than was already accomplished. There was malevolence at work. The discovery of the key in that position far from Stella's window a.s.sured him of it. The aspect of the key itself as it lay upon the table made the a.s.surance still more sure. But whom was this malevolence to hurt? And how? At what moment would the hand behind the curtain strike? And whose hand would it be? These were questions which locked his lips tight. It was for him to watch and discover, for he alone overlooked the battle-field, and if he failed, G.o.d help his friends at Rackham Park. Mario Escobar? Mario Escobar could at all events do no harm now.

Sir Chichester explained to Harry Luttrell Dr. McKerrel's suggestion.

"Just a clear, succinct statement of the facts. The witnesses, and what each one knows and is ready to depose. I shall put the statement before the coroner, who is a very good fellow, and we shall escape with as little scandal as possible. Now, let me see----" Sir Chichester put on his gla.s.ses. "The most important witness, of course, will be Stella's maid."

Sir Chichester rang the bell, and in answer to his summons Jenny came down the stairs. Her eyes were red with weeping and she was very pale.

But she bore herself steadily.

"You wanted me, sir?" she asked. Her eyes travelled from one to the other of the three men in the hall. They rested for a little moment longer upon Harry Luttrell than upon the rest; and it seemed to Hillyard that as they rested there they glittered strangely, and that the ghost of a smile flickered about her mouth.

"Yes," said Sir Chichester, pompously. "You understand that there will have to be an inquiry into the cause of Mrs. Croyle's death; and one wants for the sake of everybody, your dead mistress more than any one, that there should be as little talk as possible."

Jenny's voice cut in like ice.

"Mrs. Croyle had no reason that I know of to fear the fullest inquiry."

"Quite so! Quite so!" returned Sir Chichester, s.h.i.+fting his ground. "But it will save time if we get the facts concisely together."

Jenny stepped forward, and stood at the end of the table opposite to the baronet.

"I am quite willing, sir," she said respectfully, "to answer any question now or at any time"; and throughout the little interrogatory which followed she never once changed from her att.i.tude of respect.

"Your name first."

"Jenny Prask," and Sir Chichester wrote it down.

"You have been Mrs. Croyle's maid for some time."

"For three and a half years, sir."

"Good!" said Sir Chichester, with the air of one who by an artful question has elicited a most important piece of evidence.

"Now!" But now he fumbled. He had come to the real examination, and was at a loss how to begin. "Yes, now then, Jenny!" and again he came to a halt.

Whilst Jenny waited, her eyes once glittered strangely under their half-dropped lids; and Martin Hillyard followed the direction of their gaze to the door-key lying upon the table beside Sir Chichester's hand.

"Jenny," said Sir Chichester, who had at last formulated a question.

"You informed us that Mrs. Croyle instructed you last night not to call her until she rang. That, no doubt, was an unusual order for her to give."

"No, sir."

Sir Chichester leaned back in his chair.

"Oh, it wasn't?"

"No, sir."

Sir Chichester looked a little blank. He cast about for another line of examination.

"You are aware, of course, Jenny, that your mistress was in the habit of taking drugs--chloroform especially."

"Never, sir," answered Jenny.

"You weren't aware of it?" exclaimed Sir Chichester.

"She never took them."