IX

The Burglary at Whistlefield

When Sir Clinton came down to breakfast on the following morning, Wendover thought that he looked tired and worried, though he was doing his best to show his normal composure.

“You look as if you’d been up all night, Clinton; and yet you cleared me off to bed fairly early.”

The Chief Constable forced a smile, but it was obvious that he had something on his mind which was troubling him.

“Not all night,” he said, qualifying Wendover’s suggestion by a slight emphasis. “But I’ve certainly lost a good deal of sleep over this Whistlefield business.”

“I can’t see what you’ve got to worry about just now,” his host retorted. “Until one gets more evidence than we have just now, there’s nothing that can be done, so far as I can see. You practically admitted as much yourself, last night.”

“Last night and this morning are two different things,” Sir Clinton pointed out, rather gloomily. “A lot may happen in six hours.”

“Well, if they have happened, they have happened; and you couldn’t have prevented them happening.”

“That sounds like a truism,” the Chief Constable commented, “and I wish it were one. But it isn’t.”

He seemed almost on the verge of a confidence at last; but to Wendover’s disappointment he contented himself with adding:

“I’ve taken a big risk in this affair, Squire; and if the game goes against me, I’d never be able to forgive myself. It’s as serious as that.”

From his tone, it was evident that he was gravely perturbed; and Wendover could find nothing to say which seemed likely to be helpful.

In a moment or two, Sir Clinton broke the silence.

“They’re on the phone at Whistlefield, aren’t they?”

“Yes. Are you expecting a message?”

“One never can tell,” was all that Sir Clinton would vouchsafe. “Can you hear your telephone bell from this room?”

“Oh, yes, the machine’s just down the passage from here, as it happens.”

Sir Clinton went on with his breakfast; but Wendover could see that he was listening for the ringing of the bell. Just as they had finished, it rang sharply.

“I’ll go,” said Sir Clinton. “It’s almost certain to be Whistlefield ringing up.”

As he rose from the table Wendover could see a look of acute anxiety on his face. He left the door open as he went out, and the sound of his voice at the telephone came back into the room.

“Driffield speaking⁠ ⁠… Did you say burglar or burglars?⁠ ⁠… All right, don’t bother to tell me any more now. I’m coming across at once. Goodbye.”

Sir Clinton came back to Wendover. The anxiety on his face was as deeply marked as ever; but the prospect of action seemed to have raised his spirits slightly.

“Come on, Wendover. Get the car out, will you? There’s been a burglary at Whistlefield last night. I’ll need to go across and look into the affair.”

When they reached Whistlefield, they were shown into the study where they found Ernest Shandon and Stenness waiting for them.

“Now you might give me the whole story, Mr. Shandon,” Sir Clinton requested as soon as he had greeted the two. “It may be a case where time means a good deal; and we want to get our hands on these fellows at once, if we can.”

Ernest pulled out his cigarette-case. He seemed to be in a very nervous condition.

“D’you mind if I smoke?” he demanded, perfunctorily. “It soothes one, I always think; gives you a better chance of putting things calmly and not getting mixed up in your story.”

He peered thoughtfully into his case for a second or two before he could make up his mind which cigarette to take; but at last he found one to his mind and set it alight. Wendover fidgeted slightly, but Sir Clinton evidently recognised the uselessness of trying to hasten Ernest in his operations.

“There’s been a burglary here last night,” he announced at last. “Or rather, when I say last night, I really mean this morning because it was a good deal after midnight when it happened.”

“Can you give me the exact time?” Sir Clinton asked.

Ernest looked at him owlishly, reflected for a moment or two, and then shook his head in a careworn fashion.

“No, I don’t think so. I didn’t look at the clock, you know. It was after midnight, that’s all I can remember.”

“Begin at the beginning, then, Mr. Shandon, and give us all the details you can. Anything may turn out to be useful for all we can tell.”

“I usually go to bed quite early,” Ernest began, “but last night, after you went away, I thought I would have another look over Roger’s papers. You interrupted me, you remember,” he said, as though in explanation of his activity. “I got quite interested in some of them. Roger had so many irons in the fire. I hadn’t realised before what an amount of energy he must have had. You’ve no idea of the amount of things he was mixed up in.”

“Yes?” said Sir Clinton, trying to hasten the slow progress of the narrative.

“Such an amount of things,” Ernest went on. “It took me all my time to make head or tail of the papers I looked at. I must have been hours and hours, turning them over and reading bits here and there⁠—files of correspondence and that sort of thing. His chequebook stubs were there, too, and I looked at them. I’d no idea so much cash passed through his hands, no idea at all. By the way, I noticed something funny about his last chequebook. I’ll tell you about that again, though. It was rum, I thought; but I’d better be getting on with the story.”

Sir Clinton nodded patiently and waited for more.

“I’d just been looking over the chequebook when I heard a noise,” Ernest pursued. “Of course, in an old house like this one often hears sounds at night, furniture cracking and doors rattling, and all that sort of thing; so I didn’t pay any attention to it at the time. It was only afterwards that I remembered I’d heard it; and perhaps it had nothing to do with the burglary at all. I just mention it, because you said I was to give you all the details I could, you know.”

“What sort of sound was it?” Sir Clinton asked.

Ernest looked bewildered.

“What sort of sound was it?” he repeated. “Oh, a noise, you know. A⁠ ⁠… a⁠ ⁠…” he seemed to find the English language too limited. “It was a sound, you understand.”

“A voice?” suggested Sir Clinton.

“No, not a voice. A sound, just like a snick or a rap or something of that sort, if you see what I mean.”

“And then?”

“Oh, I paid no attention to it. In a house like this one often hears queer noises at night. It didn’t really draw my attention. I was interested in this thing about the chequebook. So I didn’t trouble about the sound.”

Wendover was surprised at Sir Clinton’s patience, for no sign of boredom appeared on his face. In fact, he seemed keenly interested.

“The next thing I remember,” Ernest continued, “was feeling sleepy. I put away the papers, put them all back in the safe again and locked it up. Then I thought I’d go to bed. I always go out for a breath of fresh air before I go to my room at night⁠—if it isn’t raining⁠—so I went to the window and looked out. It was quite dry; so I made up my mind to go for my usual stroll. I don’t go far, you know, just up and down a little near the house. It seems to me that a breath of fresh air clears your lungs and makes you sleep better after you’ve had it. I’m a great believer in fresh air. I hate sitting in a stuffy room⁠—must have the windows open always.”

“So you went out?”

“Yes. I put on a light overcoat and a cap and I opened the front door. It was locked when I found it⁠—I suppose that’s important?”

Sir Clinton made no audible comment.

“I went out into the garden and strolled round the house. That took me under the window of the room where Neville⁠—my brother⁠—had been sleeping during his stay here. And, d’you know? I found a ladder sticking up against the wall there and resting against Neville’s windowsill. And when I looked up, there was the window open!”

Sir Clinton interrupted him.

“Was there a light in the room?”

Ernest blinked hopelessly for a moment or two.

“Was there a light? There may have been. Did I say anything about a light to you, Stenness, when I waked you up? No? Well, I don’t think there was a light. There may have been, but now I come to think of it I don’t remember seeing a light. No, I’m almost sure the electric light wasn’t on in the room. I’d have noticed that. I’d have seen that at once. No, there was no light.”

Wendover intervened with a suggestion.

“Perhaps the burglars heard you coming and switched off.”

Sir Clinton had evidently heard all he wished to know about the light.

“And what happened next, Mr. Shandon?”

“When I came to the bottom of the ladder, I said to myself: ‘Burglars.’ You remember you’d been talking about how easy it would be to get into Whistlefield, that very night, in the museum. Then I had an idea. I took away the ladder as quietly as I could. That would prevent them getting out of the window again, you see? And then I went off back to the front door, let myself in, and roused Stenness and young Torrance. I was very nervous, you understand. Anyone might be, after getting a surprise like that.”

He took a fresh cigarette and lighted it with care. As he was about to continue his narrative, Sir Clinton arrested him and turned to Stenness.

“Perhaps you could give us your experiences, Mr. Stenness.”

“I’d gone to bed at the usual time, and fell asleep. I was waked up by someone knocking at my door; and when I got up I found it was Mr. Shandon. He said there were burglars in the room that Mr. Neville Shandon’s body was lying in. Mr. Shandon had on a cap and a light overcoat. As soon as he had waked me, he went off to wake Mr. Torrance. I looked at my watch. It was 2:35 a.m. I picked up the poker from my fireside and went out of my room. Mr. Torrance was there, too, by that time. I suggested that he had better get a poker as well, or else go down to the gun-room and get something better. He got a poker. Then all three of us went to Neville Shandon’s room. The door was locked; but we burst it in without making much of a noise. It’s an old door, and the lock fitted very poorly. There was no light on in the room when I got to it.”

“I’m almost sure, now I think over it, that there wasn’t any light at the window,” Ernest began again. “I couldn’t have helped seeing it, could I? Of course, all the rest of the house was dark, so if that window was dark it wouldn’t catch my eye and I wouldn’t remember about it. But if it had been lit up, I’d have noticed it at once.”

Stenness took no notice of the interruption.

“Somebody had evidently been in the room. Everything was upside down. All the drawers had been ransacked and their contents had been thrown about. Neville Shandon’s attaché case had been treated in the same way. The whole place was in confusion.”

“Did you make out what the thieves had been searching for?”

“Well, his writing-case had been torn open and most of the contents had been strewn about the floor. They’d been in a great hurry over their work. And his pocketbook was pitched over into one corner of the room as if someone had been through the contents and had chucked it away.”

“What about money? His notecase was lying on the dressing-table. I put it there myself when I searched his body yesterday.”

“Some notes were lying on the floor amongst the rest of the stuff. I didn’t count them. In fact I didn’t touch anything. I thought you’d better see things as they were.”

“The window was still open?”

“Yes.”

“It looks as though the burglar (or burglars) had got away before Mr. Shandon saw the ladder, then. They’d cleared out and left the ladder in position. What about the key of the door?”

“It hasn’t turned up.”

“And what happened after that? Why didn’t you ring up the police at once?”

Stenness suppressed a sardonic smile with evident difficulty.

Mr. Shandon was to look after that part. I went back to my room, put on some clothes, and kept myself awake by reading till the morning. We hadn’t roused the rest of the people in the house.”

Sir Clinton turned to Ernest.

“Couldn’t you get through to the police-station, Mr. Shandon? I must see about this. It’s a serious matter for my subordinates.”

Ernest seemed completely taken aback by this view of the question.

“Well, Sir Clinton, I suppose I ought to have rung up the police; but it was very late, you know. I was awfully sleepy; and as I was walking along, I turned into my own bedroom. I was very shaken up by the whole affair. It hasn’t happened to me before, you see. And somehow, I must have begun to undress quite without thinking about it⁠—you know how one does things unconsciously⁠ ⁠…”

Then, with disarming frankness, he admitted the truth:

“I went to bed. And after a minute or two, I remembered I ought to have rung up the police. But that would have meant getting out of bed again and putting on some clothes to go down to the phone. It would have been a lot of trouble. And it didn’t seem to me that it mattered very much really. So while I was thinking about it, I fell asleep. But I rang you up as soon as I got up this morning.”

Sir Clinton made no comment on Ernest’s methods. He had got all the information he needed apparently, for now he turned to Stenness and suggested that they should go upstairs and look at the scene of the burglary.

Neville Shandon’s room bore out Stenness’s description of it. Everything seemed to have been turned over and left higgledy-piggledy. The floor was littered with a confused mass of clothes, papers, contents of drawers, and other things. It seemed as though the whole place had been searched in frantic haste for some object or other; but whether the seeker had succeeded or not was apparently an insoluble problem.

Sir Clinton stepped over to the still open window and examined the sill.

“The marks of the ladder-ends are there, clear enough,” he pointed out to Wendover, “and there’s the ladder itself down on the ground.”

He beckoned Stenness to his side.

“One of your own ladders, I suppose?”

Stenness examined it.

“Yes, I happen to recognise it. The gardeners use it, and it’s kept somewhere about the place.”

“Some soil on the windowsill,” Sir Clinton pointed out. “They must have picked it up on their boots from the flowerbed where the end of the ladder rests.”

“There’s some on the floor here, as well,” Stenness pointed out.

“So I see,” Sir Clinton confirmed, “but that might have been brought up by Mr. Shandon when you and he came in here. One can’t attach much importance to it.”

He said nothing more, and contented himself with a careful inspection of the room.

“I think I’ve seen all I want to see,” he said at last. “By the way, you haven’t a key of the Maze, have you? I noticed the iron gates at each entrance had locks on them. I want to go down there now and look round.”

“I can get you a key, I think,” Stenness said, doubtfully, “but the place is always left open. It’s never been locked at any time, to my knowledge.”

“Oh, that’s all right then,” Sir Clinton hastened to say. “Now, Wendover, I think we’ll be getting along.”

A thought seemed to strike him at the last moment.

“If you’re afraid of being worried by any more burglars, Mr. Shandon, I’ll detach a couple of constables to look after Whistlefield. But I really don’t think it’s the least likely that you’ll have any further attempts of the sort. They seem to have made a thorough business of this one, to judge by the state they left the place in.”

Ernest seemed rather shamefaced at the Chief Constable’s proposal. Quite obviously he recognised that he had not shone as a hero in the business of the night.

“No,” he replied, “I don’t think we need them, Sir Clinton. I think we’ll manage without them, really. Of course, one feels a little nervous. I think it’s quite understandable, when things have been happening all together like this. But still, I don’t think we really need a guard. If you think it’s not likely to happen again, I’m quite ready to take your view of it, quite ready, I assure you. As you say, there’s no reason why they should come back at all. They must have got what they wanted. They’re sure to have got it, I think. No, they’re hardly likely to come back again.”

As they made their way downstairs Sylvia Hawkhurst met them.

“I’ve been looking for you, Sir Clinton. Guess what you left behind you last night.”

Sir Clinton shook his head doubtfully.

“I never succeed in these guessing competitions, Miss Hawkhurst. What was it?”

“The box of darts! You put it down on the mantelpiece of the museum; and I happened to notice it this morning when I went in.”

Sir Clinton’s face betrayed his annoyance at his blunder. It was so obvious that no one cared to say anything on the subject.

“I’ll get it for you in a moment,” Sylvia said, as she hurried off.

Stenness looked at the Chief Constable, and it seemed as if his estimate of Sir Clinton was undergoing revision. Wendover was completely taken aback by the turn of events.

“Here it is,” Sylvia said, as she came back to them again. “It was just where you left it. You’d better count the darts to make sure I haven’t lost any⁠—though I haven’t opened the box at all. I was too much afraid of them.”

Sir Clinton obeyed and found the total correct. He shut the box carefully and stowed it away in his pocket.

“Thanks, Miss Hawkhurst. It was very careless of me. But there’s no harm done, since you’ve taken care of them for me.”

And after a few words about the affairs of the night, he took his leave.

“Take the road to the East Gate, Squire,” he requested, as Wendover let in the clutch.

You’re a bright detective,” his friend retorted scornfully. “Here you’ve been racing and chasing to cut off a possible source of curare; and in the middle of the job you leave a whole tin of lethal darts lying about for Tom, Dick or Harry to pick up. The limit, I’d call it!”

“It was very careless,” Sir Clinton admitted, biting his lip.

“Careless!” Wendover echoed, contemptuously. “I can’t think how you managed to do it. My godfathers! Leaving stuff like that on a mantelpiece!”

Sir Clinton flushed.

“Look here, Squire, I can say ‘You’re a damned fool,’ just as often as I need to hear it just now, without your help. You can’t guess how I feel about it. Don’t rub it in, there’s a good chap.”

Wendover had never seen his friend so disturbed before. He stopped his denunciations at once. In a few moments they reached the Maze, and both left the car. Sir Clinton led the way to the entrance through which they had gone on the previous afternoon.

“I’d better take the lead,” said Wendover. “I know the Maze and you don’t. Just follow me.”

Sir Clinton paid no attention but kept in front. To Wendover’s surprise he showed no hesitation, but threaded his way through the labyrinth without difficulty. When he reached the centre he turned to his companion.

“That’s merely to show you that anyone can find their way through here if they keep their heads. I memorised the thing as Stenness was guiding us yesterday⁠—first right, third left, and so on. So you see the murderer could have got up it easily enough if he had someone to show him the ropes at the start.”

He glanced into the centre and then passed round to the position of the loophole in the outer hedge. As he did so he gave an exclamation of disgust and passed his hand over his face.

“Ugh! Spider’s web got across my mouth! There’s any amount of gossamer about here. These hedges must be full of spiders. Beastly things!”

Coming to the loophole, he examined it carefully as though to discover the range of view from it. Then he made his way to the loophole commanding the second centre, which he inspected with equal interest.

“Now we’ll go outside and have another look at the track my dog picked up,” he announced, curtly.

Wendover followed him once more, and they emerged from the entrance near the river. Sir Clinton walked over to the tree to which the dog had led them; and then, using the scraps of paper scattered on the previous day as his guide, he crossed the grass. Once on the road, he stopped and turned to Wendover. He seemed to be still smarting under the annoyance of his blunder with the darts.

“That’s the murderer’s route, you see? He came out of the Maze obviously. Then he climbed that tree, I think you said. No doubt he was well out of danger there. No one would think of looking for him up amongst the leaves. And after that he came over here, got into his private aeroplane, and flew off⁠—since the trail stops short.”

He glanced up and down the road.

“Just the one place where he could have done it, notice. This bit of the road is concealed from nearly every direction by these banks of rhododendrons round about.”

Wendover took no notice of the irony. He sympathised with Sir Clinton’s feelings; it required no great stretch of imagination to appreciate how a man would feel after making a mistake like that. They walked over to the car and took the road to the East Gate.

As he drove, Wendover began to fit together the new facts in the Whistlefield case. The more he recalled the state of Neville Shandon’s room, the more obvious it grew that the burglar had been searching for a document of some sort. This linked itself in his mind with the torn fragment of Neville’s notes which had been found in his hand after death. And Roger’s room had not been burgled.

“It looks like Hackleton at work,” he uttered, half-unconsciously.

Sir Clinton seemed to come out of a savage reverie at the words.

“Hackleton? Oh, you mean the burglary? It fits neatly in, doesn’t it?”

Then, in a more friendly voice than he had used since the dart incident:

“I’m sorry if I rubbed you on the raw, Squire. But you know how I hate to look like a fool; and that’s exactly what I do look like just now.”

Wendover was eager to accept the advance. He had no desire to irritate his friend. After all, everyone makes mistakes sooner or later. But as they fell into talk again a fresh idea shot through his mind; and this time he did not utter it aloud:

“Clinton hustled me off early to bed last night. He was washed-out-looking this morning. He hinted he’d done something or other that was risky. What if he was the burglar himself?”

But though he puzzled over this view of the case, it yielded very little help to him. At last he put it to the back of his mind, ready for future reference if needed.

Sir Clinton had one further surprise for him as they reached the Grange:

“Would you mind, Squire, if somebody brings a glass of boiling water, some vinegar, and some washing soda to my room as soon as possible? I’d like to have them now.”