The Loudwater Mystery Part 25

Also, it strengthened the case against the mysterious woman. She had come, apparently, from a distance, and probably in a motor-car. If she had driven herself down, she would be wearing gloves. Also, only a woman would be likely to be wearing gloves on a warm summer night. Indeed, coming from a distance by train, or car, she would certainly wear gloves.

She would not dream of coming to an interview, with a man with whom she had been intimate and whom she wished to bend to her will, with hands dirtied by a journey.

If that gloved hand had not been the hand of the mysterious woman, then the murder had been premeditated, and the murderer or murderess had put on gloves with the deliberate purpose of leaving no finger-prints.

It _was_ the woman. In all probability it was the woman.

Then Mr. Flexen's sub-conscious mind began to jog his intellect.

Somewhere in his memory there was a fact he had noted about gloves, and that fact was now important in its bearing on the case. He set about trying to recall it to his mind. He was not long about it. Of a sudden he remembered that he had been a trifle surprised to perceive that Colonel Grey had been carrying gloves when he had found him in the rose-garden with Lady Loudwater.

His surprise had pa.s.sed quickly enough. He had decided that the life in the trenches had not weakened Colonel Grey's habit, as a fastidious man about town, of taking care of his hands. He remembered, too, that at his first interview with him he had observed that his hands were uncommonly well shaped and well kept.

He did not suppose that Colonel Grey had come to the Castle on the night of the murder wearing gloves with the deliberate intention of killing Lord Loudwater without leaving finger-prints. But suppose that, as he came away from a distressing interview with Lady Loudwater, the knife on the library table had caught his eye and his gloves had been in his pocket?

Mr. Flexen took out his pipe, lit it, and moved to an easy-chair to let his brain work more easily. He tabulated his facts.

Colonel Grey had gone through the library window at about twenty minutes past ten.

Hutchings had gone through the library window at half-past ten.

The mysterious woman had gone through the library window at about ten minutes to eleven.

She came out of the library window at about a quarter-past eleven after a violent quarrel with Lord Loudwater.

Colonel Grey came out of the library window at about twenty-five minutes past eleven, after a distressing interview with Lady Loudwater, apparently in a very bad temper.

James Hutchings had come out of the library window at about half-past eleven, also, if William Roper might be believed, furious.

Lady Loudwater had come through the library window at a quarter to twelve, and gone back through it at five minutes to twelve.

Each of the last three had pa.s.sed within fifteen feet of Lord Loudwater, dead or alive, both on entering and on coming out of the Castle. The mysterious woman had actually been in the smoking-room with him.

If Lady Loudwater's statement that she heard her husband snoring at five minutes to twelve were to be accepted, neither Colonel Grey, Hutchings, nor the mysterious woman could have committed the murder--unless always one of them had returned later and committed it. That possibility must be borne in mind.

But Mr. Flexen did not accept her statement. If he were to accept it, she herself at once became the most likely person to have committed the crime. It was always possible that she had. She certainly had the best reasons of any one, as far as he knew, for committing it.

The evidence of Mr. Manley about the time at which he heard Lord Loudwater snore was of the first importance. But how to get it out of him? Mr. Flexen had a strong feeling that not only would Mr. Manley afford no help to bring the murderer of Lord Loudwater to justice, but, that owing to the vein of Quixotry in his nature, he was capable of helping the murderer to escape. That he could do. He had only to declare that he heard Lord Loudwater snore at twelve o'clock to break down the case against any one of the four persons between whom the crime obviously lay. Mr. Flexen had a shrewd suspicion that Mr. Manley would fail to remember at what time he had last heard Lord Loudwater's snores till the police had set about securing the conviction of one of the possible murderers. Then, when the case of the police against the murderer was revealed, he would come forward and break it down. He had decided that Mr. Manley was a sentimentalist, and he knew well the difficulty of dealing with sentimentalists. Moreover, Mr. Manley was animated by a grudge against the murdered man. Mr. Flexen could quite conceive that he might presently be regarding perjury as a duty; he had had experience of the queer way in which the mind of the sentimentalist works.

It appeared to him that everything depended on his finding the mysterious woman.

That afternoon Elizabeth Twitcher determined to go to see James Hutchings. She had not seen him since their interview on the night of the murder. In the ordinary course she would not have dreamt of going to him after that interview, for it had left them on such a footing that further advances, repentant advances, must come from him. But there were pressing reasons why she should not wait for him to make the advances which he would in ordinary circ.u.mstances have made after his sulkiness had abated.

All her fellow-servants and all the villagers, who were not members of the Hutchings family, were a.s.sured that he had murdered Lord Loudwater.

Three of the maids, who were jealous of her greater prettiness, had with ill-dissembled spitefulness congratulated her on having dismissed him before the murder; her mother had also congratulated her on that fact.

Elizabeth Twitcher was the last girl in the world to desert a man in misfortune, and, considering James Hutchings' temper, she could only consider the murder a misfortune. Besides, she had been very fond of him; she was very fond of him still, and the fact that he was in great trouble was making him dearer to her.

Moreover, every one who spoke to her about him told her that he was looking miserable beyond words. Her heart went out to him.

None the less, she did not go to see him without a struggle. She felt that he ought to come to her. However, her pride had been beaten in that struggle by her fondness and her pity--even more by her pity.

When she knocked at the door of his father's cottage James Hutchings himself opened it, and his hara.s.sed, hang-dog air settled in her mind for good and all the question of his guilt. She was not daunted; indeed, a sudden anger against Lord Loudwater for having brought about his own murder flamed up in her. Like every one else who had known him, she could feel no pity for him.

James Hutchings showed no pleasure whatever at the sight of her. Indeed, he scowled at her.

"Come to gloat over me, have you?" he growled bitterly.

"Don't be silly!" she said sharply. "What should I want to do a thing like that for? Is your father in?"

"No; he isn't," said James Hutchings sulkily, but his eyes gazed at her hungrily.

He showed no intention of inviting her to enter. Therefore she pushed past him, walked across the kitchen, sat down in the window-seat, and surveyed him.

He shut the door, turned, and gazed at her, scowling uncertainly.

Then she said gently: "You're looking very poorly, Jim."

"I didn't think you'd be the one to tell of my being in the Castle that night!" he cried bitterly.

"It wasn't me," she said quietly. "It was that little beast, Jane Pittaway. She heard us talking in the drawing-room."

"Oh, that was it, was it?" he said more gently. Then, scowling again, he cried fiercely:

"I'll wring her neck!"

"That's enough of that!" she said sharply. "You've talked a lot too much about wringing people's necks. And a lot of good it's done you."

"Oh, I know you believe I did it, just like everybody else. But I tell you I didn't. I swear I didn't!" he cried loudly, with a vehemence which did not convince her.

"Of course you didn't," she said in a soothing voice. "But what are you going to do if they try to make out that you did? What are you going to tell them?"

He gazed at her with miserable eyes and said in a miserable voice: "G.o.d knows what I'm to tell them. It isn't a matter of telling them. It's how to make 'em believe it. These people never believe anything; the police never do."

She gazed at him thoughtfully, with eyes compa.s.sionate and full of tenderness. They were a balm to his unhappy spirit.

The hardness slowly vanished from his face. It became merely troubled. He walked quickly across the room, dropped into the seat beside her and put an arm round her.

"You're a d.a.m.ned sight too good for me, Lizzie," he said in a gentler voice than she had ever heard him use before, and he kissed her.

"Poor Jim!" she said. And again: "Poor Jim!"

He trembled, breathing quickly, and held her tight.

After a while he regained control of himself, and sat upright. But he still held her tightly to him with his right arm.

They began to discuss his plight and how he might best defend himself.

She was fully as fearful as he. But she did not show it. She must cheer him up, and she kept insisting that the police could not fix the murder on him, that they had nothing to go upon. If they had, they would have already arrested him. Certainly they knew what the servants and the village people were saying. But that was just talk. There wasn't any evidence; there couldn't be any evidence.

Her support and encouragement put a new spirit into him. He had been so alone against the world. His own family, though they had loudly and fiercely protested his innocence to their friends and enemies in the village, had not expressed this faith in him to him.

Indeed, his father had expressed their real belief, when he said to him gloomily: "I always told you that d.a.m.ned temper of yours would get you into trouble, Jim."