Crossword Mystery (4 page)

It chanced to be high tide, and the Cove, which at low tide was apt to show disfiguring mud-banks, looked its best, lying like a golden lake in the sunshine, its surface breaking into tiny ripples beneath the breath of the softest and most languid of summer breezes. Almost entirely enclosed except for the narrow opening seawards at its southern extremity, it would have formed an ideal harbour but for its limited extent and for the shallowness of its waters, which prevented it from being used by any except quite small craft – and even they at low tide had to be careful to follow the recognised channels. In shape the Cove was roughly oval. The high ground of Suffby Point formed its east shore, and sheltered it well from easterly winds. At the southern extremity of the Point, Bobby could just make out a fair-sized house he guessed to be that formerly occupied by the unfortunate Archibald Winterton, and since deserted by his widow and her children. At the northern point of the rough oval the Cove formed was the mouth of a little creek that there emptied into its waters, and probably accounted for its extreme shallowness by the sediment, deposited throughout the ages, that had formed, too, the mud-banks apparent at low tide. On the west bank of the creek stood the few cottages that formed Suffby village, if village is not too imposing a word to apply to so tiny a community, and further still was a residence, low-built and comfortable-looking, dating, as Bobby afterwards learned, from early Georgian times, that he guessed must be his destination and the home of Mr. George Winterton.

Remounting his cycle, Bobby continued on his way, crossing Suffby Creek by the smart, brand-new steel and concrete bridge recently put up by the local authorities to replace the mediaeval “trefoil” or “threeway” bridge, dating from the fifteenth century but found now too steep and narrow for motorists in a hurry. A little beyond the bridge, a turning from the main road led to Suffby village on the left, and beyond that to the low Georgian house Bobby had seen from the high ground beyond the creek.

It stood close to the edge of the water; almost on the beach, indeed. A large garden, that must have covered two or three acres, stretched up the rising ground behind the house to a spot where was a small summer-house, built, after a passing fashion of the time, to represent the ruins of a small Greek temple. From this point there was a fine view over the sea, beyond West Point, though elsewhere the view was cut off by a growth of shrubs and the small, stunted trees that were all the strong air permitted to grow here, these sheltering the summer-house from observation on every other side, so that one came upon it almost unawares.

The house itself was approached by a wide, well-kept gravel drive, and Bobby, as he rode up it, was greeted by a furious outburst of barking from a big Airedale. The animal did not seem in any way vicious, but evidently did not mean any stranger's approach to go unnoticed, and though Bobby, who could usually make friends with any animal, called to it in his most coaxing tones, it was not to be beguiled from the path of duty and continued its loud announcement of his arrival till the door of the house opened and there appeared a man-servant whom Bobby guessed must be the husband of the Mrs. Cooper of whom Major Markham had spoken.

“It's all right, sir; he's only letting us know,” this man said; and, indeed, the dog at once grew quiet and, coming up to have a closer look at the new-comer, was quite willing to accept a pat on the head. “He won't bark at you again, sir, now he knows you,” the man-servant added; “very intelligent dog, sir.”

Cooper was a tall, well-built man, and would have been distinctly good-looking but for a certain flabbiness of face and form and an awkwardness of gait due to the fact that he was what is called “flat-footed.” One felt, indeed, when looking at him, that Nature had intended to make him extremely handsome, but had forgotten to give his features the finishing touches that would have made them distinctive. He had acquired, moreover, a deprecatory stoop that, together with his flat-footedness took away from his height, and his fish-like, protuberant eyes of an indeterminate hue between blue and grey had an irritating trick of flickering eyelids that gave him at times an odd appearance of trying to wink at one. But he was an excellent servant, a really excellent judge of wine, on which his opinion could be trusted, and very hard-working, so that his employer counted himself fortunate in having been able to engage him. But just at first Bobby was slightly disconcerted by that flickering eyelid which seemed so much to suggest a confidential wink. He soon got used to it, though, and realised that it was nothing but a nervous trick.

“It's Mr. Owen, sir, isn't it?” Cooper went on. “Mr. Winterton is expecting you, sir. I was to say he is so sorry he is unexpectedly engaged with a gentleman from London on business– ”

They were standing now just inside the hall. Almost behind Bobby where he stood was a door through which at this moment there came a sudden roar of angry voices. Slightly startled, Bobby turned, and with that odd, disconcerting appearance of a wink his flickering eyelid gave him Cooper said:

“It's the gentleman from London, I think, sir. Mr. Winterton was most unwilling to see him.”

The door opened and a round, small, red-haired man emerged – or, rather, bounded out, like a bristling cricket-ball. His face was crimson, his hair almost on end, his breath was coming in great gasps, his fists were clenched and gesticulating. He glared at Bobby and at Cooper as if his wrath included them in its ample bounds, and then swung round to face the room he had just left.

“It's a fraud – deliberate fraud, Winterton,” he shouted; “a swindle, sir; nothing less than a swindle.”

There came to the door of the room a very big man, ruddy and blue-eyed, with fair hair just beginning to grow grey, stout and heavy in build. He said:

“If you say that again, Shorton, I'll take you into court for slander and libel. And if you come here again, I'll throw you out of the window. Now, take yourself off as quick as you know how. Cooper, Mr. Shorton's hat, and if you see him here again, let me know, and I'll attend to him. If I'm out, set the dog on him.”

“Yes, sir; certainly, sir,” said Cooper impassively, though his flickering eyelid still gave him the appearance of bestowing upon Bobby confidential winks. “Your hat and umbrella, sir,” he added to Mr. Shorton in the best manner of the well-trained servant.

Shorton snatched them from him with a snort of rage – his social training was evidently not so well equal to the strain upon it as was the impassive butler's – included all present in one sweeping malediction, and then, as the big, fair-haired man made a step towards him, vanished through the door Cooper still held open, hurled an incoherence of oath and threat from the gravel drive, and departed down it, still with waving arms and rumbling threats.

“Little swine,” said Mr. Winterton, and added to Bobby: “You're Owen, I suppose? Sorry to give you such a welcome. That was a fellow from London I used to know – trying threats now, but they won't help him. Cooper, put Mr. Owen's cycle in the garage and take his bag up to his room.” He added to Bobby: “Come and have a drink and a smoke in my den, will you? It's where I spend most of my time, writing my ‘Justification of the Gold Standard.' We've lots of time for a talk before dinner.”

The room into which Winterton led Bobby was long, low and narrow; on one side three windows that commanded a view across the Cove to the high ground of the Point beyond, and at the further end a second door that led down two steps into the garden. By the window nearest the door whereby Bobby and his host had just entered stood a small writing-table with a typewriter on it, and nearby a big card index cabinet. In the middle of the room was a much larger writing-table, covered with books and papers and an enormous pile of typescript, till hardly an inch of its surface was visible. Between the windows were big bookcases, crammed with volumes that from one of them had overflowed into a pile on the floor. By the revolving armchair at the big central table, was one of those revolving bookcases presented to purchasers of a recent edition of the
Encyclopedia Britannica
.

Winterton invited Bobby to take one of the two or three comfortable armchairs in the room, and touched the bell by the fireplace. He had scarcely done so, had not time even to take his own seat, when the door opened and a woman came in with a tray with whisky and soda-water.

“Ah, bravo,” Winterton exclaimed. “Mrs. Cooper always knows what's wanted.”

Mrs. Cooper smiled very faintly, but did not speak. She was a tall woman, almost as tall as her husband, but with not a trace of his flabbiness about her. Her black dress, with white cuffs and collar, suited well an air of severe dignity she had, and her features were handsome and well marked, though somewhat expressionless. She wore her hair – intensely black in hue but already streaked with grey, though she was not yet forty – plaited close to her head, and her eyes, when she let you see them – for generally she veiled them behind heavy, swollen-looking lids – were of the same intense blackness. Though she gave at first an impression of being somewhat slow and deliberate in her movements, she went always so straight to her object, never wasting a turn of foot or hand, that whatever she was doing she would accomplish in less time than others whose activity seemed greater. Now, for instance, there was no sign of pause or time wasted on any attempt to clear a space on the hopelessly encumbered table. The tray was deposited instead on the top of the revolving bookcase, a touch put both bottle and glasses convenient to her employer's hand, a moment's pause while she waited, upright and still, in case anything else was required, and then she had gone with the same swift, clear decision that seemed to characterise her.

“Wonderful woman,” Winterton said as the door closed behind her; “always knows just what you want and sees that you get it – runs the whole place like an automatic machine, and yet I can knock all her arrangements endways and she'll never say a word, but pick 'em all up again and have the whole thing running O.K. to the dot once more in quick sticks.”

“Has she been with you long?” Bobby asked, accepting the drink his host offered.

“Five years, she and her husband, in fact, ever since my brother and I settled here,” Winterton answered, his face clouding over as if the memory of his brother's tragic death were still as vivid as ever. His glance wandered out to where, through the windows, Bobby could see at the extremity of the Point the house he had already supposed must have been Archibald Winterton's. Beyond it he could see now what looked like a ruin of some kind, and he was about to ask what it was when, in tones quite different from those he had used before, charged as they were with a strong emotion, and even, Bobby thought, with a secret terror, his host broke out: “Why should he have drowned? He was the strongest swimmer I've ever known, and the sea was quiet – calm as a mill-pond. That's what I want you–”

But Bobby interrupted him by jumping to his feet and going to the door. He opened it quickly. There was no one there; the hall was quite empty. He closed the door again, and, crossing the room, opened the door at the other end of the room, the one leading to the garden. There was no one visible, and nothing near where anyone could have hidden. Bobby closed that door, too, and went back to his host, who was looking surprised and somewhat indignant.

“Please excuse me, Mr. Winterton,” he said, “but it's absolutely necessary that when there is a possibility, even, of being overheard, we must talk as if I were in fact really what I am supposed to be – the son of an old friend in whom you are taking an interest. If you possibly can, I would like you to try to think of me like that. If you have some former friend you could, so to say, appoint to the position of being my temporary parent, and make references to at times, it would be a help. Perhaps you've heard that when an alibi's to be faked, a favourite trick is to select some real occurrence – a trip to Brighton or a visit to a pub, or anything – and transfer that actual event to the date the alibi's to be established for. You see the idea? Suppose, for instance, you had an old friend you went fishing with, or a walking tour, or anything like that. Make him my imaginary parent for the time. The only possible exception must be when we are out in the open air, with a clear space of a hundred yards at least all round – and then we had better talk in whispers.”

 “But, hang it all,” grumbled Mr. Winterton, “there's no one in the house except ourselves. There are the Coopers, of course, but they're quite trustworthy.”

“I don't doubt it,” answered Bobby, “but if they heard anything to make them think there was anything unusual about me, they might easily, without even meaning to, drop some remark outside that would start rumours and gossip, and all my chance of doing any useful work would be over. If I may say so, I hope and expect your suspicions are quite unfounded, but any hint of murder is serious, and it's police duty to take every precaution to make absolutely sure. So, if you please, try to think of me just as a guest, the son of an old friend. I shall try to do the same on my side. For example there are a lot of questions I shall want to ask you, but at the moment I'm merely trying to wonder what sort of time I'm going to have here, whether I'm likely to enjoy myself or be bored stiff, and whether you're the kind of older man one has to mind one's p's and q's with or not.”

“All right, all right,” Winterton agreed, though evidently still a little puzzled.

“Your workshop, I suppose, sir?” Bobby said, raising his voice a little, for before he had spoken in very low tones. “I shouldn't want to go on swotting if I had chucked the office.”

The tones, the words, were so exactly what might have been expected from a youngster trying to make talk with an elder of whom he did not feel quite certain, that Winterton could not help smiling.