The Tree of Knowledge Part 43

Claud gently recalled him to the present by asking what was to be done with the body.

Rousing himself, he gave directions for it to be carried to Edge Willoughby; and then fell afresh into a fit of despair, realising how terribly imminent it all was.

"When will the inquest take place?" asked Mr. Percivale, approaching him.

"The day after to-morrow--I cannot delay it longer; you have forty-eight hours in which to accomplish your purpose," returned Henry, with a bitter laugh quite unlike him.

"Forty-eight hours," repeated the stranger, steadily. "One can do a great deal in that time."

He remained standing, in the perfect quietness of att.i.tude which seemed habitual to him, his eyes fixed on the rude niche, hollowed in the ground, where the boy's corpse had lain.

"He was not robbed," he said, after a moment.

"Robbed? No! She was not clever enough for that," cut in Ottilie, with her harsh sneer. "Had she possessed wit enough to rifle his pockets and fling his watch into a thicket, she would have stood a better chance."

"Miss Brabourne is, perhaps, not so well versed in the science of these matters as you seem to be, madam," was the mild answer. "Yet, if she possessed cunning enough to conceive the plan of murdering her brother for his fortune, it would seem consistent to credit her also with cunning enough to do all in her power to avert suspicion; to me, it amounts to a moral impossibility that any young lady in her right mind should perpetrate such a deed, and then walk quietly home without so much as making up a single falsehood to s.h.i.+eld herself."

"Murderers, especially inexperienced ones, are never consistent,"

returned Mrs. Orton, furiously, "as you would know, if you knew anything at all of the matter."

"Ottilie, Ottilie, come away, for goodness sake--it is sn.o.bbish to get up a row," urged her husband, in low tones; and, taking her by the arm, he led her unwillingly away from the scene of conflict.

Claud and Percivale were left confronting each other.

"The valley will have a pretty ghastly celebrity attaching to it after this," remarked the former, removing his straw hat to pa.s.s his handkerchief over his hot brow. "This is the second mysterious affair within one summer."

"The second!" echoed Percivale, keenly, turning his eyes upon him full of awakened interest.

"Yes; and with points of similarity too. Each victim had been attacked from behind, and beaten with a heavy stick; there was no robbery in either case, and Miss Elsa Brabourne in the former case, oddly enough, was the person to discover the insensible victim. Whether the incident unconsciously influenced her, whether as is the case sometimes, according to newspapers, the ease with which one crime had been committed suggested another, I cannot of course say----"

"Was the man killed?"

"No; he recovered: but had no idea as to who was his a.s.sailant. We had down a detective----"

"English detectives are no use at all, or I would telegraph for the entire force," replied Percivale. "I believe I shall get to the bottom of this matter more surely by myself. I have already formulated a theory. You say the criminal was never discovered?"

"No; never even had a clue worth calling a clue."

"Then surely the same idea at once occurs to you as to me, that both these murders are the work of one hand."

Claud was silent.

"I had not thought of it," he said at last.

"No; because your mind is full of a preconceived idea; and nothing is more fatal to the discovery of the truth. Let me show you what I mean. I suppose there is no room at all for the absurd supposition that Miss Brabourne was concerned in crime number one?"

"None whatever. She was out walking with her maid, and they found Mr.

Allonby lying insensible by the roadside. He had been first stunned by a blow on the head, then so severely beaten that the bone of one arm was broken."

"And not robbed?"

"No; except for a most absurd circ.u.mstance--one which mystified us all more than anything. He had his dinner with him--he was making a sketch, I should tell you; an artist--and this dinner was packed for him by Mrs.

Clapp, of the Fountain Head, in a pudding-basin, tied round with a blue and white handkerchief. After the murder the basin and handkerchief were missing, nor could they be found, though careful search was made. The detective could offer no solution of this part of the business."

"What solution did he offer of the rest of the transaction?"

"He felt certain it must be the result of some private grudge; the attack was such a vicious one--as if the one idea had been to kill--to wreak vengeance."

"What time of day was this done?" asked Percivale, who was following every word with close interest.

"As near as possible at five o'clock, one evening towards the end of June. The time can be fixed pretty conclusively, for when Miss Brabourne and her maid pa.s.sed the place shortly before, he was alive, seated on a camp-stool; on their return he was lying in the gra.s.s, motionless."

"And was there any inhabitant of the village likely to bear the artist a grudge?"

"Impossible! He was an utter stranger."

"Did anyone see a stranger pa.s.s through? Let me know the circ.u.mstances more accurately. Describe the scene of the occurrence."

Claud eagerly complied, supplying Mr. Percivale with every detail, and doing it with the intelligent accuracy which was part of his nature. The other listened closely, questioning here and there, and finally gave his conclusion with calm conviction.

"Every word you utter convinces me that for a stranger of any sort to penetrate into the valley, track Mr. Allonby's whereabouts, and vanish without leaving a trace, taking with him a pudding-basin as a memento of his vengeance, amounts to a moral impossibility. It is absurd. You say, too, that Mr. Allonby has no idea himself on the subject--says he has no enemies--is as much in the dark as anyone?"

"Yes, and I believe him: he is a thoroughly simple-minded, honest fellow."

"Then it stands to reason, in my opinion, that the murderer is an inhabitant of Edge Valley."

"But then," cried Claud, "you take away any possibility of a motive!"

"Exactly; and, granting for the sake of argument that Miss Brabourne did _not_ murder her brother, what motive have we here?"

Claud was silent.

"The way you argue is this," went on Percivale, "you know of a powerfully strong motive for the murder of this poor boy, and you feel bound to accept the theory because, if it be not so, you are at a loss to account for the thing on any other grounds. You say--there must be a very forcible reason to incite to murder. I answer you--here is a crime, committed in this very village, not three months back, fresh in everyone's memory, alike in many salient points, and, as far as we can learn, utterly without purpose. If one mysterious deed can be committed in this valley, why not two? Why is the homicide to stop short? If he has managed to dispose of a full-grown man on the high-road in broad daylight, he will make short work of a delicate little boy, out by himself on the cliffs in the twilight."

"But," urged Claud, "you are a.s.suming that these outrages are committed simply for the sake of killing--with no motive but slaughter. They must then be the work of a maniac, of some one not in his right mind!"

"Exactly. That is the very same conclusion which I have arrived at. Do you know of any such in the village?"

"No, I don't. I am certain there is no such person," answered Claud, hopelessly.

"He may very likely exist without anyone's suspecting it," rejoined Percivale. "You know a man may suffer from one special form of mania and be absolutely sane on every other point. If we could leave the discovery to time, he must inevitably betray himself, sooner or later; but we have to run him to earth in eight-and-forty hours. Let us see if the spots selected give us any clue. How far from where we are now standing was Mr. Allonby attacked?"

"In quite the opposite direction--nearly four miles from here. Starting from Edge Willoughby, you would turn to your right and strike inland to get to Poole Farm; you would turn to your left and walk along the sh.o.r.e to get here."

"I see. That does not help us much; yet the criminal should have some hiding place within convenient distance one would think. Unless it be some one so completely beyond the pale of suspicion that his goings and comings excited no attention whatever. Is there no village idiot here?

They indulge in one in most out-of-the-way spots like this?"

"Oh, yes, there is Saul Parker, an epileptic boy; but he is out of the question."