The Sittaford Mystery Read online

  The fun went on. Mr. Rycroft smiled indulgently. Young people must have their jokes. He caught one glance of his hostess’s face in a sudden flicker of the firelight. It looked worried and abstracted. Her thoughts were somewhere faraway.

  Major Burnaby was thinking of the snow. It was going to snow again this evening. Hardest winter he ever remembered.

  Mr. Duke was playing very seriously. The spirits, alas, paid very little attention to him. All the messages seemed to be for Violet and Ronnie.

  Violet was told she was going to Italy. Someone was going with her. Not a woman. A man. His name was Leonard.

  More laughter. The table spelt the name of the town. A Russian jumble of letters—not in the least Italian.

  The usual accusations were levelled.

  “Look here, Violet,” (“Miss Willett” had been dropped) “you are shoving.”

  “I’m not. Look, I take my hands right off the table and it rocks just the same.”

  “I like raps. I’m going to ask it to rap. Loud ones.”

  “There should be raps.” Ronnie turned to Mr. Rycroft. “There ought to be raps, oughtn’t there, sir?”

  “Under the circumstances, I should hardly think it likely,” said Mr. Rycroft drily.

  There was a pause. The table was inert. It returned no answer to questions.

  “Has Ida gone away?”

  One languid rock.

  “Will another spirit come, please?”

  Nothing. Suddenly the table began to quiver and rock violently.

  “Hurrah. Are you a new spirit?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you a message for someone?”

  “Yes.”

  “For me?”

  “No.”

  “For Violet?”

  “No.”

  “For Major Burnaby?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s for you, Major Burnaby. Will you spell it out, please?”

  The table started rocking slowly.

  “T R E V—are you sure it’s V? It can’t be. T R E V—it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Trevelyan, of course,” said Mrs. Willett. “Captain Trevelyan.”

  “Do you mean Captain Trevelyan?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve got a message for Captain Trevelyan?”

  “No.”

  “Well, what is it then?”

  The table began to rock—slowly, rhythmically. So slowly that it was easy to count the letters.

  “D—” a pause. “E—A D.”

  “Dead.”

  “Somebody is dead?”

  Instead of Yes or No, the table began to rock again till it reached the letter T.

  “T—do you mean Trevelyan?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t mean Trevelyan is dead?”

  “Yes.”

  A very sharp rock. “Yes.”

  Somebody gasped. There was a faint stir all round the table.

  Ronnie’s voice as he resumed his questions held a different note—an awed uneasy note.

  “You mean—that Captain Trevelyan is dead?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a pause. It was as though no one knew what to ask next, or how to take this unexpected development.

  And in the pause, the table started rocking again.

  Rhythmically and slowly, Ronnie spelled out the letters aloud. . . .

  M-U-R-D-E-R. . . .

  Mrs. Willett gave a cry and took her hands off the table.

  “I won’t go on with this. It’s horrible. I don’t like it.”

  Mr. Duke’s voice rang out, resonant and clear. He was questioning the table.

  “Do you mean—that Captain Trevelyan has been murdered?”

  The last word had hardly left his lips when the answer came. The table rocked so violently and assertively that it nearly fell over. One rock only.

  “Yes. . . .”

  “Look here,” said Ronnie. He took his hands from the table. “I call this a rotten joke.” His voice trembled.

  “Turn up the lights,” said Mr. Rycroft.

  Major Burnaby rose and did so. The sudden glare revealed a company of pale uneasy faces.

  Everyone looked at each other. Somehow—nobody quite knew what to say.

  “All rot, of course,” said Ronnie with an uneasy laugh.

  “Silly nonsense,” said Mrs. Willett. “Nobody ought to—to make jokes like that.”

  “Not about people dying,” said Violet. “It’s—oh! I don’t like it.”

  “I wasn’t shoving,” said Ronnie, feeling unspoken criticism levelled at him. “I swear I wasn’t.”

  “I can say the same,” said Mr. Duke. “And you, Mr. Rycroft?”

  “Certainly not,” said Mr. Rycroft warmly.

  “You don’t think I’d make a joke of that kind, do you?” growled Major Burnaby. “Rotten bad taste.”

  “Violet dear—”

  “I didn’t, Mother. Indeed, I didn’t. I wouldn’t do such a thing.”

  The girl was almost tearful.

  Everyone was embarrassed. A sudden blight had come over the cheerful party.

  Major Burnaby pushed back his chair, went to the window and pulled aside the curtain. He stood there looking out with his back to the room.

  “Twenty-five minutes past five,” said Mr. Rycroft glancing up at the clock. He compared it with his own watch and somehow everyone felt the action was significant in some way.

  “Let me see,” said Mrs. Willett with forced cheerfulness. “I think we’d better have cocktails. Will you ring the bell, Mr. Garfield?”

  Ronnie obeyed.

  Ingredients for cocktails were brought and Ronnie was appointed mixer. The situation grew a little easier.

  “Well,” said Ronnie, raising his glass. “Here’s how.”

  The others responded—all but the silent figure by the window.

  “Major Burnaby. Here’s your cocktail.”

  The Major roused himself with a start. He turned slowly.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Willett. Not for me.” He looked once more out into the night, then came slowly back to the group by the fire. “Many thanks for a very pleasant time. Good night.”

  “You’re not going?”

  “Afraid I must.”

  “Not so soon. And on a night like this.”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Willett—but it’s got to be done. If there were only a telephone.”

  “A telephone?”

  “Yes—to tell you the truth—I’m—well. I’d like to be sure that Joe Trevelyan’s all right. Silly superstition and all that—but there it is. Naturally, I don’t believe in this tommy rot—but—”

  “But you can’t telephone from anywhere. There’s not such a thing in Sittaford.”

  “That’s just it. As I can’t telephone, I’ll have to go.”

  “Go—but you couldn’t get a car down that road! Elmer wouldn’t take his car out on such a night.”

  Elmer was the proprietor of the sole car in the place, an aged Ford, hired at a handsome price by those who wished to go into Exhampton.

  “No, no—car’s out of the question. My two legs will take me there, Mrs. Willett.”

  There was a chorus of protest.

  “Oh! Major Burnaby—it’s impossible. You said yourself it was going to snow.”

  “Not for an hour—perhaps longer. I’ll get there, never fear.”

  “Oh! you can’t. We can’t allow it.”

  She was seriously disturbed and upset.

  But argument and entreaty had no more effect on Major Burnaby than if he were a rock. He was an obstinate man. Once his mind was made up on any point, no power on earth could move him.

  He had determined to walk to Exhampton and see for himself that all was well with his old friend, and he repeated that simple statement half a dozen times.

  In the end they were brought to realize that he meant it. He wrapped himself up in his overcoat, lighted the hurricane lantern, and stepped out into the night.

&
nbsp; “I’ll just drop in to my place for a flask,” he said cheerily, “and then push straight on. Trevelyan will put me up for the night when I get there. Ridiculous fuss, I know. Everything sure to be all right. Don’t worry, Mrs. Willett. Snow or no snow—I’ll get there in a couple of hours. Good night.”

  He strode away. The others returned to the fire.

  Rycroft had looked up at the sky.

  “It is going to snow,” he murmured to Mr. Duke. “And it will begin long before he gets to Exhampton. I—I hope he gets there all right.”

  Duke frowned.

  “I know. I feel I ought to have gone with him. One of us ought to have done so.”

  “Most distressing,” Mrs. Willett was saying, “most distressing. Violet, I will not have that silly game ever played again. Poor Major Burnaby will probably plunge into a snowdrift—or if he doesn’t he’ll die of the cold and exposure. At his age, too. Very foolish of him to go off like that. Of course, Captain Trevelyan is perfectly all right.”

  Everyone echoed:

  “Of course.”

  But even now they did not feel really too comfortable.

  Supposing something had happened to Captain Trevelyan. . . .

  Supposing. . . .

  Three

  FIVE AND TWENTY PAST FIVE

  Two and a half hours later, just before eight o’clock, Major Burnaby, hurricane lantern in hand, his head dropped forward so as not to meet the blinding drive of snow, stumbled up the path to the door of “Hazelmoor,” the small house tenanted by Captain Trevelyan.

  The snow had begun to fall about an hour ago—great blinding flakes of it. Major Burnaby was gasping, emitting the loud sighing gasps of an utterly exhausted man. He was numbed with cold. He stamped his feet, blew, puffed, snorted and applied a numbed finger to the bell push.

  The bell trilled shrilly.

  Burnaby waited. After a pause of a few minutes, as nothing happened, he pushed the bell again.

  Once more there was no stir of life.

  Burnaby rang a third time. This time he kept his finger on the bell.

  It trilled on and on—but there was still no sign of life in the house.

  There was a knocker on the door. Major Burnaby seized it and worked it vigorously, producing a noise like thunder.

  And still the little house remained silent as the dead.

  The Major desisted. He stood for a moment as though perplexed—then he slowly went down the path and out at the gate, continuing on the road he had come towards Exhampton. A hundred yards brought him to the small police station.

  He hesitated again, then finally made up his mind and entered.

  Constable Graves, who knew the Major well, rose in astonishment.

  “Well, I never, sir, fancy you being out on a night like this.”

  “Look here,” said Burnaby curtly. “I’ve been ringing and knocking at the Captain’s house and I can’t get any answer.”

  “Why, of course, it’s Friday,” said Graves who knew the habits of the two pretty well. “But you don’t mean to say you’ve actually come down from Sittaford on a night like this? Surely the Captain would never expect you.”

  “Whether he’s expected me or not, I’ve come,” said Burnaby testily. “And as I’m telling you, I can’t get in. I’ve rung and knocked and nobody answers.”

  Some of his uneasiness seemed to communicate itself to the policeman.

  “That’s odd,” he said, frowning.

  “Of course, it’s odd,” said Burnaby.

  “It’s not as though he’s likely to be out—on a night like this.”

  “Of course he’s not likely to be out.”

  “It is odd,” said Graves again.

  Burnaby displayed impatience at the man’s slowness.

  “Aren’t you going to do something?” he snapped.

  “Do something?”

  “Yes, do something.”

  The policeman ruminated.

  “Think he might have been taken bad?” His face brightened. “I’ll try the telephone.” It stood at his elbow. He took it up and gave the number.

  But to the telephone, as to the front door bell, Captain Trevelyan gave no reply.

  “Looks as though he has been taken bad,” said Graves as he replaced the receiver. “And all alone in the house, too. We’d best got hold of Dr. Warren and take him along with us.”

  Dr. Warren’s house was almost next door to the police station. The doctor was just sitting down to dinner with his wife and was not best pleased at the summons. However, he grudgingly agreed to accompany them, drawing on an aged British Warm and a pair of rubber boots and muffling his neck with a knitted scarf.

  The snow was still falling.

  “Damnable night,” murmured the doctor. “Hope you haven’t brought me out on a wild goose chase. Trevelyan’s as strong as a horse. Never has anything the matter with him.”

  Burnaby did not reply.

  Arriving at Hazelmoor once more, they rang again and knocked, but elicited no response.

  The doctor then suggested going round the house to one of the back windows.

  “Easier to force than the door.”

  Graves agreeing, they went round the back. There was a side door which they tried on the way, but it too was locked, and presently they emerged on the snow-covered lawn that led up to the back windows. Suddenly, Warren uttered an exclamation.

  “The window of the study—it’s open.”

  True enough, the window, a French one, was standing ajar. They quickened their steps. On a night like this, no one in his senses would open a window. There was a light in the room that streamed out in a thin yellow band.

  The three men arrived simultaneously at the window—Burnaby was the first man to enter, the constable hard on his heels.

  They both stopped dead inside and something like a muffled cry came from the ex-soldier. In another moment Warren was beside them, and saw what they had seen.

  Captain Trevelyan lay on the floor, face downwards. His arms sprawled widely. The room was in confusion—drawers of the bureau pulled out, papers lying about the floor. The window beside them was splintered where it had been forced near the lock. Beside Captain Trevelyan was a dark green baize tube about two inches in diameter.

  Warren sprang forward. He knelt down by the prostrate figure.

  One minute sufficed. He rose to his feet, his face pale.

  “He’s dead?” asked Burnaby.

  The doctor nodded.

  Then he turned to Graves.

  “It’s for you to say what’s to be done. I can do nothing except examine the body and perhaps you’d rather I didn’t do that until the Inspector comes. I can tell you the cause of death now. Fracture of the base of the skull. And I think I can make a guess at the weapon.”

  He indicated the green baize tube.

  “Trevelyan always had them along the bottom of the door—to keep the draught out,” said Burnaby.

  His voice was hoarse.

  “Yes—a very efficient form of sandbag.”

  “My God!”

  “But this here—” the constable broke in, his wits arriving at the point slowly. “You mean—this here is murder.”

  The policeman stepped to the table on which stood a telephone.

  Major Burnaby approached the doctor.

  “Have you any idea,” he said, breathing hard, “how long he’s been dead?”

  “About two hours, I should say, or possibly three. That’s a rough estimate.”

  Burnaby passed his tongue over dry lips.

  “Would you say,” he asked, “that he might have been killed at five twenty-five?”

  The doctor looked at him curiously.

  “If I had to give a time definitely, that’s just about the time I would suggest.”

  “Oh my God,” said Burnaby.

  Warren stared at him.

  The Major felt his way blindly to a chair, collapsed onto it and muttered to himself whilst a kind of staring terror overspread his fa
ce.

  “Five and twenty past five—Oh my God, then it was true after all.”

  Four

  INSPECTOR NARRACOTT

  It was the morning after the tragedy, and two men were standing in the little study of Hazelmoor.

  Inspector Narracott looked round him. A little frown appeared upon his forehead.

  “Ye-es,” he said thoughtfully. “Ye-es.”

  Inspector Narracott was a very efficient officer. He had a quiet persistence, a logical mind and a keen attention to detail which brought him success where many another man might have failed.

  He was a tall man with a quiet manner, rather faraway grey eyes, and a slow soft Devonshire voice.

  Summoned from Exeter to take charge of the case, he had arrived on the first train that morning. The roads had been impassable for cars, even with chains, otherwise he would have arrived the night before. He was standing now in Captain Trevelyan’s study having just completed his examination of the room. With him was Sergeant Pollock of the Exhampton police.

  “Ye-es,” said Inspector Narracott.

  A ray of pale wintry sunshine came in through the window. Outside was the snowy landscape. There was a fence about a hundred yards from the window and beyond it the steep ascending slope of the snow-covered hillside.

  Inspector Narracott bent once more over the body which had been left for his inspection. An athletic man himself, he recognized the athlete’s type, the broad shoulders, narrow flanks, and the good muscular development. The head was small and well set on the shoulders, and the pointed naval beard was carefully trimmed. Captain Trevelyan’s age, he had ascertained, was sixty, but he looked not much more than fifty-one or two.

  “Ah!” said Sergeant Pollock.

  The other turned on him.

  “What is your view of it?”

  “Well—” Sergeant Pollock scratched his head. He was a cautious man, unwilling to advance further than necessary.

  “Well,” he said, “as I see it, sir, I should say that the man came to the window, forced the lock, and started rifling the room. Captain Trevelyan, I suppose, must have been upstairs. Doubtless the burglar thought the house was empty—”

  “Where is Captain Trevelyan’s bedroom situated?”

  “Upstairs, sir. Over this room.”

  “At the present time of year it is dark at four o’clock. If Captain Trevelyan was up in his bedroom the electric light would have been on, the burglar would have seen it as he approached this window.”