THE CRYSTAL BEADS MURDER (Murder Mystery for Inspector Stoddart). Annie Haynes
did they get there?"
"Ah!" The inspector lay back in his chair and smoked his gasper. "I should very much like to discover that. As I said just now, there is some nasty, hanky-panky work going on here that I don't understand at all."
Harbord was on the point of replying when there was a knock at the door. The landlady of the "Medchester Arms" looked in.
"Joseph Wilton is asking to see you, sir. The gardener that found the poor gentleman dead in the summer-house," she added in an explanatory tone.
The inspector sat up.
"Show him in, please, Mrs. Marlow."
Joseph Wilton was a clean-looking, clean shaven man, probably in the early forties. He was evidently in his working clothes, but they were whole and tidy. About him there clung that indefinable smell that always seems to hang about those who work on the land.
He touched his forehead to the inspector.
"Afternoon, sir."
"Good afternoon, Mr. Wilton," the inspector returned politely. "I hear that it was you who found Mr. Saunderson's body in the summer house."
"It was, sir." The man hesitated a minute. "It was, sir," he said again. "I found the poor gentleman then, and now I ha' found this here." He put one horny hand in his trouser pocket and fumbled for a moment or two; then very slowly he produced something that he dangled before the inspector's amazed eyes--a long chain of crystal beads linked together by a thin, gold chain. It had evidently been broken and the two ends hung loose.
The inspector sprang up.
"That, by Jove! Where did you find it?"
"Down among the rhododendrons hard by the rosery gate, on the right side. I was clearing out there and cutting the rhododendrons back a bit," Joseph Wilton answered, shaking his find before the inspector. "I showed it to Mr. Macdonald, our head gardener, and he said I'd better bring it to you; it might be you'd want to see it, he said."
"So I do," the inspector said, taking the chain in his hand and examining it with care. "It is a thing I have wanted to see very much indeed, Mr. Wilton. Now, should you be able to show us exactly where you found this thing if we went back to the garden with you?"
Wilton scratched his head and looked doubtful.
"Well, maybe I could, and again maybe I couldn't. I dessay I should be within a few yards, anyway."
"That'll do for our purpose." The inspector crossed over to a cupboard that was let into the wall near the fireplace and, opening it, deposited the chain in a small box therein, and carefully locking it dropped the key in his pocket. "Well, we will walk up with you, Mr. Wilson, and you shall show us as near as you can."
"Yes, sir, I'll do my best."
They all three went out of the "Medchester Arms" together and, walking up the village street towards the Hall, Joseph Wilton's pleasure at being seen by his neighbours in the company of his obvious superiors was tempered by fear that they might imagine he had been taken into custody.
"'Twould be easier, like, to cross over there through the paddock to the blue doors and walk up to the rosery from there than to go round by the lodge," he observed at last, pointing to a stile by the side of the road.
"Well, the quicker we are the better," the inspector assented.
He sprang over the stile and the other two followed. The path across the paddock was pretty well defined and quite obviously led to the path at the bottom of the rosery.
"Easily accessible, the Hall gardens," the inspector observed, looking round. "Saunderson would have had no difficulty in getting in."
"N--o!" Wilton, too, looked round. "He could ha' got in right enough, but the keeper's lodge's round there and the dogs are often out at night, and they might go for a stranger. I did hear, though, that they were all out at the Spring Wood that night looking for poachers."
"Oh, indeed! Well, later on we might have a chat with the keeper," Stoddart remarked with a glance at Harbord. "It must have given you a scare, Mr. Wilton, when you saw the man lying dead in the summer-house."
"It did that," Wilton assented. "First when I saw some one lying there the thought come to me that it was some tramp that had got in and maybe gone to sleep. When I saw what it was I turned fair sick."
"I don't wonder. I expect it would turn most of us," the inspector said sympathetically. "Did you move the body at all, or touch it in any way?"
Wilton shook his head.
"I did not, sir. I saw directly I got up to him the gentleman was dead and cold, and I called out to Bill Griggs as was sweeping up leaves outside on the walk, and when he had had a look we both run up to the house to tell his lordship."
"You were one of those who lifted the body on to the stretcher, I understand?" the inspector pursued.
"Ay! That I was, and a nasty job it was," the other agreed slowly. "I dunno as I should care for such another."
"This Bill Griggs you spoke of just now, was he one of the others to lift the body?"
"No, that he wasn't," Wilton said, pausing by an iron railing that ran down one side of the rosery. "There was just the two ambulance men and me. The superintendent he helped a bit, steadying the head and so forth. There wasn't anybody else needed."
"That so?" The inspector looked at him. "Who were the ambulance men? They would be in some sort of uniform, I presume? You would know them?"
"Y--es, I did, in a manner of speaking," Wilton responded slowly. "They was Holford men, the two of 'em. I ha' passed the time of day with them when I've met 'em, which hasn't been often. If you could get over those railings, sir, it'd be the nearest way to the summer-house."
"Oh, I can manage that right enough," the inspector said lightly.
He put his hand on the top rail and vaulted over. Harbord followed suit, then Wilton clambered over.
"You are wonderfully nippy for town gentlemen," he said, gazing admiringly at the detectives.
The inspector laughed.
"Ah, I wasn't always a town gentleman, Mr. Wilton. You've no idea, I suppose, who the owner of the bead necklace might be?"
The man shook his head.
"You're sure?" the inspector pressed. "Never seen it on any of the ladies staying at the house?"
"Ay, I am that!" Wilton said positively. "Not that I'd notice much what they got round their necks. Never saw 'em before so far as I know."
"Bead necklaces are pretty much alike," the inspector said thoughtfully. "I suppose we are getting near the place where you found it?"
Wilton assented as he unlatched the little gate at the side of the rosery and led the way into the Dutch garden. Right in front of them were the rhododendrons that formed the hedge between the garden and the clearing in the midst of which the summer-house stood.
"It was up here." Wilton quickened his step until he had nearly reached the wall forming the northern boundary of the Dutch garden. "I left my shears here, you see. I was cutting back the bushes. Those leaves I brushed up near there and I saw the necklace caught on one of the lowest boughs of that there rhododendron, a fine pink 'un it is in the spring. But I couldn't reach it from here, and there's wire along the lower part to keep the rabbits away from the flower-beds, so I had to go to the summer-house side to get it."
The inspector peered through. The rhododendrons were high and thick and strong with the growth of years. He marvelled how Wilton could have seen anything.
"Tidy distance from the summer-house, isn't it? Looks as if the thing must have been put there on purpose."
"'Tain't so far from the summer-house as you think," Wilton dissented. "Nearly right opposite here it is. And pretty straight across it is. If anybody came down in the dark, side of those rhododendrons, that necklace might easily get caught and pulled off. That's how I look at it; or,