MARIE BELLOC LOWNDES - British Murder Mysteries Collection: 17 Books in One Edition. Marie Belloc Lowndes
“in great trouble, my dear. What makes it worse is the knowledge of how unhappy it is going to make my mother.”
And then at once, for though she was young she was no fool—your country-bred girl often knows a great deal more of real life than your town-bred girl—Enid Dent said to herself that Roger’s trouble was connected with a woman.
“Tell me all about it,” she said quietly, and she stiffened herself to bear a blow.
“I will tell you all about it. But I’m afraid you will be very much shocked.”
To that she made no answer. No doubt some London girl was bringing a breach of promise action against Roger. That was the sort of trouble Enid Dent visualised.
“Things are never so bad when one talks them over,” she said, and tried to smile in the dark night. “Nothing could make me feel any different to you, Roger. Why, you’re my oldest friend!”
They were walking away from the house, down a broad path where they had often played when he was a boy of twelve and she a little girl of five.
“No talking can make any difference to my trouble,” and there came a harsh note in his voice.
They walked along in silence, and then he gently shook himself free of her arm.
“I’ve reason to believe that in the next few days——”
He stopped short. The ignominy, the horror of what might be going to happen to him, overwhelmed him.
“Yes, Roger? What is it that you think is going to happen? Tell me.”
He would have been surprised, indeed, if she had suddenly uttered aloud the words that she was saying in her heart, “Don’t you see the agony I am in? It’s cruel, cruel to keep me in suspense!”
“I think it possible, perhaps I ought to say likely, that I may be arrested on a charge of murder, within the next few days.” He uttered the dread words quietly enough. “And that though I assure you, Enid, that I am absolutely innocent——”
She cut across his words, “You needn’t have troubled to tell me that, Roger.”
“Though I’m absolutely innocent,” he repeated, “yet I’m beginning to realise that appearances are very much against me. I’ve felt all this afternoon as if I were living through a frightful nightmare, and I’m always expecting to wake up and find it was only a dream, after all.”
Enid knew that this man she loved had a violent temper. She supposed that he had had the kind of quarrel with another man in which one of the two strikes out.
“I’ve been wondering, during the last few minutes, whether you would be able to come up to London with my mother? It would be such a comfort to know you were with her, if this thing really happens.”
“Of course I will!” she exclaimed.
He went on: “You’ve always been like a daughter to her, haven’t you? And I know that, next to me, she loves you best in the world.”
“I think she does,” she whispered in a strangled voice, for she was now near to tears. “But a long way after you, Roger.”
“Well, yes,” he answered, in a matter-of-fact tone; “no doubt a long way after me. But still she loves you dearly, and she trusts you utterly, as I do.”
“I’ll stay with her all through the trouble—if the trouble comes. I promise you that, Roger.”
“It’s not that I have any doubt as to the outcome. The man whose death is being, I feel sure, put down to my account, almost certainly committed suicide. There’s no other solution possible.”
“Who was the man?” she asked diffidently.
“An acquaintance rather than a friend of mine, called Jervis Lexton. He fell ill—that I have to admit is a mysterious point about the whole business—about a fortnight ago. He died, rather suddenly, last week, on the 16th. A post-mortem revealed the cause of death to have been a virulent poison—arsenic. I saw him alone a few hours before he died, and I have a jar of arsenic in my surgery. There you have the story in a nutshell.”
He spoke in an awkward, constrained tone.
“Are you really going back to-night?” she asked. “Can’t you stay till tomorrow morning? It would be such a comfort to Mrs. Gretorex.”
“I’m afraid I must go back. You see, I’ve a lot of patients, and it isn’t fair to put all that work on another doctor.”
“I see.”
“I wonder if you and my mother can come to town tomorrow? She’d be wretched, staying on here in suspense, waiting for news of what, after all, may never happen.”
They were turning now towards the house, and as they emerged from under the trees they both noticed that the front door was open. Through it a shaft of bright light fell on the stone-paved courtyard, and Gretorex suddenly became aware that, in the shadow, a motor with hooded lights was drawn up.
“Who can that be at this time of the evening?” he said, surprised.
They walked swiftly across the wide lawn, and so on to the stone pavement. Then, as they passed through the open door, they heard Mrs. Gretorex’s voice and the unfamiliar voice of a man in the great hall.
“I think I hear my son coming in. In any case, I assure you he won’t be long.”
Mrs. Gretorex uttered the words in a matter-of-fact yet anxious tone, as if she feared the person she spoke to might not believe her.
Roger followed Enid through the lobby which separated the front door from the hall, and then he saw his mother standing with a tall, slight man whom Roger knew to be the Inspector of Police at Lynchester, the county town hard by. They had met two months back in connection with a local poaching affray.
“May I speak with you for a few moments in private, Dr. Gretorex?”
A look of great relief had come over the inspector’s face; he was aware in what high regard Mrs. Gretorex was held throughout the neighbourhood. He had also noticed the young lady who had just come in, and knew her for the only daughter of a local magistrate. So he was anxious to get through the unpleasant business which had brought him to-night to Anchorford Hall, as quietly and quickly as possible.
“I’m quite at your service. We’ll go into the smoking-room, but——”
Gretorex turned right round and began rapidly walking towards the front door.
As a matter of fact, the door had been left open, and he wished to close it.
But the inspector believed his lawful prey intended to escape into the darkness, and a hundred suspicious, angry thoughts flashed through his mind.
What a thing it would be to have to search the downs and woods all this coming night! ’Twould be like looking for a needle in a stack of hay.
He strode past Mrs. Gretorex, and seized Roger with no gentle hand by the collar.
“I’m surprised, sir, at your trying to get away. I didn’t expect such a thing from you!”
Gretorex wrenched himself free.
“I don’t know what you mean!” he exclaimed angrily.
“Oh, yes, you do. You were making for that door.”
“I was making for the door to shut it.”
He was shaking with anger, and the two glared at each other for a moment in silence.
Then the inspector took a step forward, and laid his hand on the young man’s arm.
“I arrest you,” he said, in a voice that was not quite steady, “on the charge of having murdered Jervis Lexton on the 16th of this month.”
Roger Gretorex stood still. Then he asked:
“May