Inspector Stoddart's Most Famous Cases. Annie Haynes
in the high wall which surrounded the doctor's garden. That was unfastened. As Miss Lavinia pushed it open she raised her eyebrows.
"Anybody could come in here, burgle the house and leave you very little the wiser," she remarked with a glance at Wilton.
"Yes; but it isn't generally left open like this," he said as he closed it behind them. "It is always kept locked by Dr. Bastow's orders unless anything is wanted for the garden—coal for the greenhouse, or manure."
But Miss Lavinia was not attending to him. She broke into a run as they emerged from the little shrubbery and began to cross the narrow strip of grass that lay between it and the house. On the farther side of this, immediately under the windows, there was a broad gravel path.
Miss Lavinia hurried across it, and placing her hands on the window-sill moved her head up and down.
"Well, how that young woman saw into this room puzzles me! The blind is drawn as close as wax!"
"On that side perhaps." Wilton had come up behind her, and now drew her across.
Here the blind seemed to have been pushed or caught aside, and any tall person standing outside could see right into the room; since much to Miss Lavinia's amazement the curtain inside was also caught up.
"Why, it's a regular spy-hole!" she said as, putting her hands on the window-sill and raising herself on tiptoe, she applied her eyes to the glass.
A moment later she dropped down with a groan.
"She is right enough. John is there, and I don't like the way he sits huddled up in his chair. Mr. Wilton, you had better get in as soon as you can."
Wilton needed no second bidding. One blow shattered the pane nearest him, and putting his arm through he raised the catch, then the sash, and then vaulted into the room. Miss Lavinia waited, one arm round Hilary, who had joined her.
It seemed a long time before Wilton came back, but it was not in reality more than a minute or two before he parted the curtains again; and stood carefully holding them so that Hilary could not see into the room.
"I fear the doctor is very ill," he said gravely. "I have the key. We will go round."
Hilary threw off her aunt's arm.
"Go back to Dad, Basil. What do you mean by leaving him? I can get in this way too."
She put her hands on the window-sill, and would have scrambled in, but Wilton held her back at arm's length.
"You don't understand, Hilary. You can do no good here. Your father is—"
"Dead—no, no—not dead!" Hilary said wildly.
Wilton's eyes sought Miss Lavinia's as he bent his head in grave assent.
Chapter III
"Murdered? God bless my soul! I never heard such nonsense in my life!" Miss Lavinia Priestley was the speaker.
Basil Wilton was facing her and beside him was a short, rather stout man. Dr. James Greig was an old friend of Dr. Bastow's and a telephone summons had brought him on the scene. A third person at whom Miss Lavinia had scarcely glanced as yet stood behind the other two.
As a matter of fact, very few people did glance a second time at William Stoddart, which fact formed a by no means inconsiderable asset in Stoddart's career in the C.I.D. For William Stoddart was a detective, and one of the best known in the service too, in spite of his undistinguished exterior.
Neither particularly short nor particularly tall, neither particularly stout nor particularly thin, he seemed to be made up of negatives. His small, thin, colourless face was the counterpart of many others that might have been seen in London streets, though in reality Stoddart hailed from the pleasant Midland country. His eyes were grey, not large. He had a trick of making them appear smaller by keeping them half closed; yet a look from those same grey eyes had been known to be dreaded by certain criminal classes more than anything on earth. For it was an acknowledged fact that Detective-Inspector Stoddart had brought more of his cases to a successful conclusion than any other officer in the force.
That he should have come this morning on the matter of Dr. John Bastow's death showed that in the opinion of the Scotland Yard authorities there were some mysterious circumstances connected with that death.
So far, since with the two doctors he had entered the morning-room to confront Miss Lavinia and her niece, he had not spoken, nor did he break the silence now. Dr. James Greig took upon himself the office of spokesman.
He answered Miss Lavinia, to whom he was slightly known.
"I am very sorry, Miss Priestley, that there can be no doubt on the point. Dr. Bastow was shot through the head—the shot entered at the back. It is quite certain that the pistol was fired at close quarters and was probably held just behind the ear."
"My God!" The exclamation came from Miss Lavinia.
Hilary shivered from head to foot. The twentieth-century girl does not faint—she merely turned a few degrees whiter as she glanced from Dr. Greig's face to Basil's, from his again to that of the great detective.
"But what do you mean? He couldn't have been murdered. Nobody would have murdered him," Miss Lavinia cried, too much staggered to be quite coherent now. "Everybody liked John!"
"I'm afraid it is evident that some one did not," Dr Greig said firmly. "The murderer must have been some one the doctor knew too. You see he had allowed him to come quite close."
"Allowed him or her?" a dry voice interposed at this juncture.
Sir Felix Skrine had entered the morning-room by the door immediately behind Miss Lavinia and Hilary. He grasped Miss Lavinia's hand with a word of sympathy and touched Hilary's arm with a mute, fatherly gesture, as he went on addressing himself to Dr. Greig.
"There is nothing to show the sex of a person who fires an automatic revolver, you know, doctor." Then he looked across at the detective and nodded. "Glad to see you here, Stoddart. I would sooner have you in charge of a case of this kind than any man I know."
The detective looked gratified.
"You are very kind, Sir Felix. But we all have our failures."
"Very few in your case," Skrine assured him. "But I want a little talk with you as soon as I can have it, Stoddart. Miss Lavinia, I am going to take you and Hilary up to the drawingroom for the present. Later every one in the house will have to give their account of last night's happenings, to the inspector. For the present I take it you and Hilary have nothing to say."
"Nothing," Miss Lavinia assured him. "We were waiting for my brother-in-law to come in for a few last words, as he always did, you know, Sir Felix."
"I know," Skrine assented.
"Well, we waited and waited, for he had promised me his advice in rather a difficult matter," Miss Lavinia went on. "And he didn't come. At last the parlourmaid told us they couldn't make him hear. I said he must have been called out, but she said he hadn't. We went down and—found out what had happened. I mean—found that John was dead. Of course I thought he had had a fit, or something. I could not guess—"
In spite of her iron self-control her voice gave way. Now Inspector Stoddart for the first time took command of the situation.
"I think if you would allow us just to see the scene of the tragedy and to make a few inquiries while the matter is fresh, it will be better, madam," he said politely. "You shall hear everything later."
Up in the drawing-room Sir Felix drew forward two big easy chairs to the fire that had been hastily lighted and put Miss Lavinia and Hilary into them.
"I will come back as soon as I can," he said sympathetically.
Then he and the detective went to the scene of the tragedy. A policeman was stationed at the door