IV

The Chief Constable

As Stenness picked his way through the convolutions of the Maze, his face showed that his mind was at work on some puzzling problem.

“Things haven’t worked out quite according to plan,” he commented to himself as he walked along. “I’ve missed that train, now; and I may as well see the business through on the spot. If only I’d aimed for the earlier train, I might have pulled it off.”

His frown of annoyance faded out suddenly, as a new idea crossed his mind.

“Perhaps it’s all for the best after all. I never thought of that point. Nobody can swear to it: and it leaves me absolutely on velvet⁠—safer than ever.”

His face cleared completely as he considered the fresh situation which had presented itself.

“This is worth a dozen of the other notion. All I have to do now is to sit tight and keep a straight face.”

The secretary soon reached the outskirts of the Maze. Then, taking up a position which commanded the road to the East Gate, he sat down on the grass and waited the arrival of the police.

Before long, a motor-horn sounded, and he rose to his feet as a big car came tearing up the narrow private road. In the front seats were two civilians, whilst the back held three uniformed policemen. Long before the motor reached him, Stenness had recognised the man at the wheel as the owner of a neighbouring estate.

“That’s Wendover of Talgarth Grange. I wonder what he’s doing here.”

Going out into the roadway, the secretary signalled them to stop and the long car drew up as it came level with him. Wendover jumped down from the driving seat and came forward while the others were getting out of the motor.

“Sad business, this, Stenness! Terrible affair! Is poor Shandon really dead? Why, I saw him yesterday, poor chap.”

Stenness was watching the remainder of the party, and he noticed that there had been a dog in the car. It was now fawning on the second civilian, evidently delighted to get out of its cramped quarters in the motor. Stenness turned back to his interlocutor.

“It’s worse than we supposed when I telephoned. Two of the Shandons have been murdered in the Maze, here.”

He nodded in the direction of the high green hedges.

Wendover was completely taken aback.

“Two of them! My godfathers! Here, Clinton!” he called to the second civilian. “Terrible business, this. There’s been a second murder.”

Then, as the man with the dog came up to them, Wendover turned back to the secretary.

“This is the Chief Constable, Sir Clinton Driffield. Clinton, this is Mr. Stenness; secretary to Roger Shandon.”

Stenness examined the Chief Constable with what seemed more than common interest. Sir Clinton was a slight man who looked about thirty-five. His suntanned face, the firm mouth under the close-clipped moustache, the beautifully-kept teeth and hands, might have attracted a second glance in a crowd; but to counter this there was deliberate ordinariness about his appearance. Had a stranger, meeting him casually, been asked later on to describe him, it would have been difficult; for Sir Clinton designedly refrained from anything characteristic in his dress. Only his eyes failed to fit in with the rest of his conventional appearance; and even them he had disciplined as far as possible. Normally, they had a bored expression; but at times the mask slipped aside and betrayed the activity of the brain behind them. When fixed on a man they gave a curious impression as though they saw, not the physical exterior of the subject, but instead the real personality concealed below the facial lineaments.

“A second case? H’m! You seem to be starting a wholesale trade at Whistlefield, Mr. Stenness.”

Stenness was not impressed by the cheerfulness of the tone. He had felt those keen eyes sweep over him; and though it had been anything but a stare, he had the sensation of being appraised and catalogued for future reference. He disliked the turn of the Chief Constable’s phrase, too. Whether intentionally or not, it seemed to verge on the macabre.

“What about starting, eh?” Wendover demanded. “Get on the track while the scent’s hot, Clinton? Every minute may count, you know.”

Sir Clinton assented with a nod and snapped his fingers to call his dog to heel.

“Suppose you show us the bodies, Mr. Stenness.”

Without replying, Stenness led the way into the Maze, followed closely by the whole party. The Chief Constable scanned the corridors as he passed along, but made no comment. Wendover evidently felt that some explanation of his presence was due, for as they traversed the alleys he overtook the secretary.

“Curious coincidence, this, Stenness. Sir Clinton’s a friend of mine, and he happened to be staying with me just now for a few days. Most fortunate affair! When you phoned down to the police station, they rang him up at once at the Grange. I got out the car, of course; and we picked up the constables at the station as we passed. Couldn’t have been better planned, could it?”

Then, passing to a new line of thought, he added:

“Terrible affair for the family! Dreadful business! It’ll be a frightful shock for Miss Hawkhurst, won’t it?”

Before Stenness could reply, they came to the entrance of one of the centres of the Maze. The secretary turned to the Chief Constable.

“This is what they call the Pool of Narcissus, Sir Clinton. We found Neville Shandon’s body here. Roger Shandon’s body is lying in the other centre of the Maze.”

Sir Clinton nodded without replying, took off his hat, and entered the enclosure. The body lay just as Stenness had seen it last; and the Chief Constable made no attempt to touch it, though he subjected it to a most minute inspection.

“I forgot to tell you,” whispered Wendover. “We phoned for a doctor to come and examine the body. He’ll be here very soon.”

The Chief Constable rose lightly to his feet.

“Two or three small wounds, apparently; but not much bleeding. Once the doctor’s overhauled him, we can make a fuller examination. In the meantime things had better be left as they are. Will you take us to the other body now, Mr. Stenness?”

Leaving one of the constables on guard over the corpse, the party made its way, under Stenness’s guidance, to the second centre of the Maze. On the road, Wendover gave Stenness some further information.

“Most fortunate that Driffield was on the spot, wasn’t it? He’ll get to the bottom of things quick enough; trust him for that. He used to be out in South Africa; a big post in the police there. Then he came home for family reasons and dropped into the Chief Constableship here. Much too good a man for the place, you know; but it gives him enough to keep him busy. By the way, he knew something about Roger Shandon out at the Cape.”

“I believe Shandon made part of his money there,” Stenness volunteered in confirmation.

As they entered Helen’s Bower, Stenness saw a momentary upward twitch of Sir Clinton’s eyebrows as his glance lighted on the stranger whom they had encountered in the Maze.

“Ah! Mr. Timothy Costock?”

The captive showed much more surprise.

“Why, it’s Driffield, so it is! Well, if that isn’t the damnedest luck. There’s no keepin’ out o’ the way o’ you busies, it seems. But you’re on the wrong track this shot. I never laid a finger on this fellow.”

He indicated Roger Shandon’s body as he spoke.

“Nobody’s accused you of laying a finger on him. Or of anything else⁠—yet,” said Sir Clinton, curtly. “I’ll listen to your story later on. Don’t waste time elaborating it. You’ll find the plain truth’s best. This is more serious than illicit diamond buying.”

He paused for an instant, then continued:

“Now I think of it, you were Shandon’s cat’s paw that time I got my hands on you at Kimberley.”

Then, as Costock opened his mouth in protest, Sir Clinton cut him short abruptly:

“I’d keep my mouth shut, if I were you. Nobody’s asking you to incriminate yourself.”

The hint was sufficient for the ex-I.D.B. expert. His protest died on his lips. Sir Clinton paid no further attention to him, but set about a careful examination of the body of Roger Shandon. As he rose to his feet again, Stenness came forward.

“This is Mr. Howard Torrance, Sir Clinton, a guest at the house. He was in the Maze at the moment when the murder was done. Torrance, this is the Chief Constable.”

He turned to the gardener.

“This is Skene, Sir Clinton, one of the gardeners on the estate. He came with me here as soon as we learned what had happened.”

Sir Clinton nodded a brief appreciation of Stenness’s explanations. The secretary had wasted no words over the business, and yet had given all the information necessary at the moment.

Howard Torrance, thus brought to the front, seized the opportunity offered to him.

“Some darts here. Skene found them at the foot of the hedge. Lid of a tin box was lying beside them as well.”

Sir Clinton picked up the lid and inspected the tiny missiles which had been collected.

“Airgun darts, evidently,” he commented.

Characteristically enough, he did not call attention to the equally obvious fact that they were not ordinary airgun darts. The woollen feathering, instead of showing the usual gaudy colours, was stained brown; and a rusty powder seemed to cling to the fibre. A tiny patch of the same pigment showed on the metal jackets of the darts, near the points. Sir Clinton put the collection down again carefully.

“Now, Skene,” he said, turning to the gardener, “that was a good piece of work of yours. Can you show me exactly where you found these things?”

Obviously delighted with the Chief Constable’s compliment, Skene was only too ready to indicate the precise position where he had picked up the darts and the box-lid.

“You got the lot, I suppose? At least all you could see from here?”

Howard Torrance, watching the Chief Constable, was surprised to see that his eyes, instead of searching the ground, seemed to be ranging over the surface of the hedge; and when Skene answered the question, Sir Clinton’s thoughts appeared to be elsewhere. He turned to Stenness.

“Can you take us to the other side of this hedge at that point?”

Stenness led the way once more into the Maze; and Sir Clinton found that quite a considerable distance had to be traversed before they reached the required position.

“This is the place?” he inquired, as Stenness came to a halt. “That’s clear enough,” he added, as he stooped to pick something from the side of the path. When he held it out, they recognised it as the bottom of the tin box of which the lid had already been found. Sir Clinton turned to the constables.

“Hunt about and see if you can find any more of these darts. You mustn’t miss a single one, remember. And handle them carefully. They’re deadly things, evidently.”

Then, as Stenness and Howard Torrance showed signs of joining in the search, the Chief Constable stopped them with a gesture.

“I think we’ll leave the officials to do the work,” he said with a certain finality in his tone.

Again he appeared to be more interested in the hedge itself than in the roots where more darts might be hidden; and after a moment or two he went forward and seemed to peer closely into the greenery at one particular point. When he stepped back again, Howard moved forward in curiosity; and Sir Clinton made way for him. As he brought his eye to the position in which he had seen the Chief Constable’s, he looked into a concealed loophole. The twigs had been trimmed away to form a tunnel, the ends of which had been left covered with a thin screen of leafage; and a glance through the aperture showed that it bore directly on the chair in which Roger Shandon had been killed.

But already Sir Clinton seemed to have lost interest in the matter. He whistled; and the dog which had been left behind in Helen’s Bower came running to him.

“Have a sniff,” he invited the animal, holding out to it the part of the tin box which he still held in his hand. “Now see what you can make of it.”

He turned to his companions.

“It’s a poor chance. Don’t blame the animal if it fails.”

Part of Sir Clinton’s character was revealed in the whimsical apology. He was always noted for his loyalty to his subordinates and his readiness to recognise the impossibility of some tasks. It was the complement to his sternness when he had to deal with inefficiency.

“That’s right! Good dog! He’s on to something!” Wendover announced unnecessarily.

The beast had apparently picked up some scent or other, for it hurried off along the alleys, followed by Sir Clinton and the other three men. The constables were left to their search among the hedge roots.

It was anything but a simple route along which the dog led them; for it seemed to wind backwards and forwards almost at haphazard.

“Nobody who knew the Maze would have tried to get out this way,” Stenness commented at last.

His remark was hardly needed; for already the dog had more than once halted in the middle of an open alley and then retraced its course for no obvious reason. It was Howard Torrance who saw the meaning of these intricate tracings before the remainder of the party.

“Of course!” he explained. “The murderer didn’t go straight out of the Maze immediately. Probably he found Miss Forrest and myself blocking the road again and again as we wandered about. And he’d got to avoid being seen by us. That’s why he had to turn and wind about like this.”

At last the dog led them to the edge of the Maze, passed out through the iron gate, and went on eagerly across the grass. The track had brought them to the river side of the labyrinth, where a tiny clump of trees had been planted; and into this the dog plunged. A few paces further on it halted for a moment at the foot of a tree.

“Perhaps he climbed that,” Wendover suggested, going up and examining the trunk. “Look! There’s a faint mark here on the trunk, just about the height that a man could reach with his foot.”

Sir Clinton examined the mark, which was very slight indeed. Then he looked at the dog, which had set off in a fresh direction.

“I suppose he must have got tired of the view and come down again, in that case. One usually does come down. One rarely climbs higher than the top.”

He set off after the dog, which was now making for the road running past the Maze. But here it seemed to go astray. It snuffed about with the utmost eagerness, casting wider and wider in its attempt to recapture the scent; but soon it was clear that it had lost the track. Sir Clinton took it back to the tree once more and allowed it to start afresh. This time he followed closely on its track; and his companions noticed that he had pulled some paper from his pocket and was scattering tiny fragments on the grass to mark the animal’s route. But this attempt also ended in failure. Beyond the road, the trail seemed to be lost.

“We may as well give it up,” Sir Clinton admitted. “One can’t expect infallibility from a dumb animal.”

As he called the beast off, a motor-horn sounded, and they saw a car coming from the direction of the house.

“That’s our doctor, I expect,” Sir Clinton surmised; and Stenness confirmed the guess.

In a few minutes they had all made their way to Helen’s Bower, under Stenness’s guidance. Once there, the doctor proposed to begin his examination of the bodies; but the Chief Constable intervened.

“Just a moment, doctor. Before you shift anything, I want to take one or two photographs. Nothing like a permanent record for future reference.”

He took a case which one of the constables had carried and produced from it one of the largest-sized Kodaks. Then, by the marks of the feet in the grass, he replaced the overturned chair in its proper position; and finally he marked the position of the loophole in the hedge by means of a scrap of paper.

“I want something to give the scale,” he explained, at the last moment. “Would you mind sitting in the chair, Mr. Stenness? And perhaps you’d stand by the loophole, Mr. Torrance?”

He looked round the enclosure for an instant.

“And here, Costock, you get over into that corner. It’ll give some notion of the distance.”

When they had placed themselves, he took several photographs from various positions.

“Now, doctor, you can get to work if you like.”

The doctor made only a cursory examination.

“I think it would be best to shift the body up to the house. The light’s not very good here, now the sun’s going down. Besides, I’ll need to do more than I can do in this place.”

“There’s a second body waiting for you,” Sir Clinton explained. “We’ve the whole thing to do over again.”

The doctor, a taciturn man, shrugged his shoulders without making any audible comment and they made their way, guided by Stenness, to the Pool of Narcissus. Sir Clinton gave some directions to his constables and despatched the gardener to the house to bring down something on which the bodies could be carried. Then the photographic procedure was repeated; and the doctor made his examination of Neville Shandon’s corpse.

“There must be a loophole in this hedge as well,” the Chief Constable mused aloud, “but it’s not worth while hunting for it at present. It won’t run away.”

The constables reported the discovery of several fresh darts which had fallen either into the hedge itself or among the roots on the outer side. Skene, it appeared, had secured all those on the inner border. Sir Clinton counted the tiny projectiles carefully, dropped them into the tin box, and put the box in his pocket.

“That’s eleven altogether. Go back and hunt for anything more. I must have every one of these darts if you have to finish the search by lamplight. Make absolutely certain that you miss nothing.”

Skene arrived shortly afterwards with two other gardeners carrying hurdles; and the two bodies were transported to the cars and so conveyed to the house. Two more constables had arrived, and these were put under the guidance of Skene and given instructions to search the whole of the Maze for anything suspicious.

When the bodies had been taken up to a bedroom, Sir Clinton and the doctor carried out a minute examination. Each victim had been struck by three darts. In the case of Neville Shandon, the wounds suggested that the shots had been fired from the front and rather to one side. Roger’s body, on the other hand, contained one dart imbedded in the back of the neck, and two in the upper part of the rear surface between the spine and the shoulder on the left side. Beyond the punctures made by the darts, neither victim showed a trace of either wound or struggle.

“Poison, obviously,” Sir Clinton concluded.

The doctor agreed, adding in confirmation:

“None of these darts came near a vital spot. Alone, they’d never have killed a man.”

“Can you guess what poison was used?”

The doctor shook his head.

“Not my line. Some of these Indian arrow-poisons, perhaps. Ardsley could tell you something about them, most likely.”

“Who’s Ardsley? Could one get hold of him quickly?”

“He lives less than a mile from here. He’s a medical; but he doesn’t practise. Curiously enough, toxicology is his line, more or less. He’s a bit of a physiologist, too. I know he has a vivisection licence. You might do worse than look him up. He might be able to give you a hint.”

Sir Clinton looked thoughtful for a moment.

“What worries me is that a man can’t be in two places at once. I’m going to take over this case myself, and there’s enough work on hand in the next hour to keep two men busy. It’s time I’m up against at present.”

The doctor, reflecting on the conflicting calls of a country Practice, was inclined to think that Sir Clinton seemed to make a fuss about very little.