THE MAN WITH THE DARK BEARD (Murder Mystery Classic). Annie Haynes
"As well as she is likely to be after having her father murdered last night, and having been catechized for goodness knows how long by a brute of a detective this morning," Miss Lavinia retorted. "At the present moment she is in the drawing-room, being consoled by her young man I presume, till his turn comes to go in."
Sir Felix frowned.
"Do you mean Wilton?"
Miss Lavinia stared at him.
"Well, of course. Anybody can see they are head over ears in love with one another."
"A boy and girl affair," Sir Felix said impatiently.
"Boys and girls know their own minds nowadays," was Miss Lavinia's conclusion.
Meanwhile in the morning-room Detective Inspector Stoddart was turning papers over impatiently. Matters were not going quite to Inspector Stoddart's liking. So far his examination of the household had not elucidated the mystery surrounding Dr. John Bastow's death at all. And yet the detective had the strongest instinct or presentiment, whatever you may like to call it, that the clue which would eventually lead him through the labyrinth was to be found amongst them.
At last, pushing the papers from him impatiently, he walked to the door.
"Jones, ask Mr. Wilton to step this way."
The policeman saluted and went off; in another minute Basil Wilton appeared.
"You want to take my statement, I understand, inspector?"
The inspector frowned.
"Yes. Rather an important one, in view of the fact that you were the last person to see the late Dr. Bastow alive."
"You are forgetting the murderer, aren't you?" Wilton questioned with a wry smile.
"I should have said the last person known to have seen the late Dr. Bastow alive," the inspector corrected himself. "I shall be glad to hear your account of that interview if you please, Mr. Wilton."
"It was short and not particularly agreeable," Wilton told him in as calm and unemotional a tone as if he had no idea how terribly the statement might tell against him in the detective's eyes. "Dr. Bastow gave me notice."
"On what ground?" The inspector's tone was stern.
Wilton paused a moment before replying.
"I cannot tell you," he said at last.
The inspector made a note in the book in front of him.
"I should advise you to reconsider that answer, Mr. Wilton."
There was silence again for a minute, and then Wilton spoke slowly:
"Well, I expect I may as well make a clean breast of it. I had proposed to Miss Bastow, and the doctor objected. My dismissal followed as a matter of course."
"Hm!"
The detective glanced through his notes. That Wilton should be angry at the rejection of his advances to the doctor's daughter and also at his dismissal was natural enough, but his anger would scarcely carry him so far as the shooting of her father. He scratched the side of his nose reflectively with the end of his fountain pen.
"How did you leave the doctor?"
"Just as usual. He was sitting in the chair in which he was found—later. As I went towards the door he made a few technical remarks about a case I was attending. Afterwards I was called out, and was away about an hour."
"Then—you found the body, I think?"
"Yes. I forced the window and got into the room," Wilton assented. "But the parlourmaid, Taylor, had previously told us that she had looked through a hole in the curtain and had seen the doctor sitting in his chair in an odd, huddled-up position. So she may be termed the first who saw the body."
"Just so!" the inspector assented. "That hole or peep-hole between the curtain and the blind was a curious affair, Mr. Wilton. Did it strike you that it had been purposely arranged?"
"I don't know that it did at the time," Wilton said slowly. "But, looking back, it certainly seems odd that it should be there, and on that particular evening too. Was it arranged so that some one should watch that interview with the doctor which ended in his death? It almost looks as though it must have been so. And yet—"
"And yet—" the inspector prompted as Wilton paused.
"That would presuppose two people knowing what was going to happen, wouldn't it?" the young man finished.
The inspector drummed with his fingers on the table.
"It might. At any rate it would establish the fact that some one had a motive for watching the doctor and his visitor. What do you know of this woman—Taylor?"
Wilton looked surprised at the sudden question "Nothing at all. She was parlourmaid here. And quite remarkably good-looking, but I should hardly think I had spoken to her half a dozen times."
"Did you ever suspect that she was on friendly terms with Dr. Bastow?" the inspector rapped out.
"Certainly not!" Wilton answered with decision. "Dr. Bastow was not that sort of man at all—not the sort of man to be on friendly terms with one of his servants."
"That is, as far as you know," the inspector said with one of his sardonic smiles. "Nobody is that sort of man, as you call it, until he is found out, you know, Mr. Wilton. Cases have come under my observation in which the worst offenders in this respect have been absolutely unsuspected even by their own wives. You know that Taylor has bolted."
Wilton nodded.
"Miss Bastow told me so just now."
"And an innocent girl does not run away from a house where a crime has been committed," the inspector went on almost as if he were arguing the case out with himself.
"She might have other reasons—her own reasons for not wanting to be recognized," Wilton suggested.
The inspector stared at him. "You have foundation for this?"
Wilton shook his head.
"Not the least. But Miss Priestley hinted to me just now that she fancied she had seen Taylor in different circumstances."
"She did not say where?"
"No; she said she could not remember."
"Hm!" The inspector wrinkled up his nose into the semblance of corrugated iron. "I must have another word with Miss Priestley. In the meantime there are two questions I must put to you. First, did you notice anything unusual in the state of the room when you got in through the window?"
"Absolutely nothing. The room was precisely as I had seen it hundreds of times."
"What shoes were you wearing?"
Wilton looked surprised at the sudden change of subject.
"My ordinary indoor shoes. I was not expecting to go out again that evening."
"And you wore those shoes to go round to the garden door and to cross the grass to the window?"
"Certainly I did." Wilton smiled faintly. "I should hardly stop to change."
The inspector shut up his small notebook quickly and snapped the elastic round it.
"That is all, then, Mr. Wilton. For now, at any rate. I must have another word with Miss Priestley, though."
"I will tell her," Wilton volunteered. An errand to Miss Lavinia would probably mean a word or two with Hilary.
The inspector looked half inclined to object, but finally decided to say nothing.
Wilton went in search of Miss Priestley. He found her, as he expected, in the drawing-room with her niece, but his brow contracted as he saw Sir Felix Skrine sitting beside Hilary. Miss Lavinia did not look pleased at this second summons to the morning-room. She flounced off with the expressed intention of giving the policeman a piece of her mind. Without a second glance