The Kang-He Vase/Chapter 5

Miss Ellingham saw my start of surprise and astonishment at sight of this unexpected apparition, for when the man had taken some order from her and relieved the room of his multi-coloured presence, she turned to me with a laugh.

“Something new for you, that, eh?” she said, “Never seen anything like that before, have you?”

“Not out of a picture, ma’am,” said I.

“Oh, well, he’s real enough, poor Mandhu Khan!” she remarked. “A very good and faithful servant!—I brought him with me from India, where I lived a great many years—most of my life, in fact. He feels the English climate, though, and so do I, up to now. We have to keep good fires going, in spite of the Spring warmth. But here’s the port, and you shall have a glass—when I was young, and people had been ill, they always had port, and I don’t see any reason why that custom should change, though most customs have changed, I’m sorry to say, since I left England.”

The Hindu had come back with a tray on which was a decanter and glasses, and a jar of biscuits: Miss Ellingham helped me to one glass of port and herself to another, and putting the biscuits at my elbow bade me serve myself. She nodded smilingly at me over the rim of her glass.

“Here’s wishing you a speedy return to your usual health, Ben Heckitt,” she said. “The parson was telling me about you, yesterday. Your illness caught you on the very brink of a legal career, didn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I answered. “I was just going to be articled to Mr. Philbrick, in Kingshaven. I’ve been intended for the law ever since I was twelve years old, ma’am. I’ve lost six months through my illness.”

“Oh, well, you’ll soon make that up!” she remarked cheerfully. “Got to be articled five years, haven’t you? You see, I know something about it—my father was a famous London solicitor—attorneys they used to call them in those days. He made a big fortune out of the law—let’s hope you will.”

“Yes, ma’am—thank you,” said I. “What branch of the profession did your father go in for, ma’am?”

She laughed at that, as if my obvious eagerness contrasted with some recollection.

“Oh, I’m afraid he was a dull and prosaic commercial lawyer, my father,” she replied. “Conveyancing, and Companies, and all that sort of thing, you know. Which branch are you going in for?”

“I incline to criminal practice, ma’am,” said I, with a grave assurance that she no doubt found amusing. “I’ve read a lot of criminal law and practice already. Mr. Philbrick, he’s the best police-court practice in Kingshaven.”

“Well, that’s an interesting line!” she remarked, with another laugh. “More fun about police-courts than county-courts, no doubt. I suppose you’re well up in what they call leading cases—murder trials and so on, eh? That’s a deeply interesting”

Just then the door burst open, and in rushed Miss Ellingham’s nephew, Bryce, evidently in a state of high excitement, followed by Pepita Marigold. Bryce was an aggressively healthy youngster, about my own age, whom I secretly hated because since his arrival at the Grange he was for ever persuading Pepita to go boating or fishing or birds-nesting with him, and so getting more of her company than I liked. But he was not thinking of Pepita just then; the blaze in his eyes rose out of sheer delight at something utterly unusual.

“Aunt Kittie!—Aunt Kittie!” he vociferated, at the top of his voice. “Have you heard?—do you know what’s happened? There’s been a murder!—a real, proper, awful murder, just close by—last night—a man! Captain Marigold”

He broke off, suddenly catching sight of me, and his eyes grew as big as saucers, and his mouth opened wider and wider. Then he pointed straight at my face.

“Why!—why!—why!” he exclaimed. “He saw it!—you did see it, didn’t you, Ben Heckitt? Pepita says”

Pepita, too, was gazing at me as with an awful fascination, and I was quick to see that for that train at least Master Bryce would have to take a back seat. I was the man who knew!—the firsthand informant! I played up to the part, affecting an almost cynical indifference.

“Oh, yes!” I said, picking a crumb or two of biscuit off the table. “Oh, yes!—I was there! Yes!”

“Where?” demanded Miss Ellingham, looking from one to the other. “What is all this? A murder? A man murdered? What man? When? And why didn’t you tell me, Ben?” she went on, turning in my direction. “We’ve not heard of it here!”

“I thought you’d know all about it, ma’am,” I replied. “It’s known all over the neighbourhood, I should think.”

“No one has been out from here this morning,” she said quickly. “Except Bryce. But tell me about it, Ben!—do I understand that you were there?—that you saw—whatever was done—you? Tell me!”

“Yes, tell, tell!” exclaimed Bryce, almost dancing in his eagerness. “Tell! Tell about the man you found, tied up to the gallows tree! Go on!”

I felt revived by that time, and the glass of old port helped me to be, if not eloquent, at any rate dramatic. I imagined myself appearing for the prosecution, and laying out a case, lucidly, and with fitting detail, before a judge and jury, or a bench full of magistrates. And while I addressed myself to Miss Ellingham, I was conscious that Bryce on one side of me, and Pepita on the other, was drinking in and gloating over all the horrors of the story in full exercise of their youthful appetite for the gruesome. But young as I was, I could see that it was not the horror, but the mystery of the thing that impressed my chief listener. Miss Ellingham listened with concentrated attention, evidently forming ideas of her own as I went on. When I concluded by telling what Veller had told Keziah and me that morning, about there being a likelihood of a Scotland Yard detective being sent for she shook her head.

“I don’t see much of a clue for him to lay hold of,” she remarked. “Well!—here’s something for you to exercise your taste for criminal practice on, Ben! A strange, dark affair! And close to one’s own door! It would seem”

She paused there: a man had come into the room; a man who carried some silver things on a tray, and was quietly placing them on the sideboard. I had never seen him before; Miss Ellingham and her servants had arrived at the Grange during my illness. I took him for the butler—that was what he looked like in his grey trousers, black coat and vest, and neatly-tied neckcloth. He was a little, quiet-looking man, very prim, proper, precise, with a rather taking, thoughtful face, on either side of the otherwise clean-shaven expanse of which was a bit of dark whisker, and his movements, as he flitted from one end of the big sideboard to the other, were as quiet and subdued as his looks. Miss Ellingham turned in his direction.

“Carsie!” she said. “Have you heard of this murder?”

The man turned, deferentially, folding his hands: I remember noticing, somehow, what soft, white hands he had, and how they stood sharply defined against the dead black of his cutaway morning coat.

“I have just heard of it, ma’am,” he answered in quiet, level accents. “From one of the tradesmen who called just now, ma’am—a mere outline.”

“No further news since this morning?” asked Miss Ellingham. “No clue?”

“Not that I am aware of, ma’am,” replied Carsie. “My informant, ma’am, inclined to the opinion—a generally prevalent opinion, I gathered—that the unfortunate victim was brought ashore from the sea.”

“That’s what I should think,” said Miss Ellingham. “You heard the sound of oars, didn’t you say, Ben?”

“Yes, ma’am—my sister and I both heard the sound of oars, as if a boat was being pulled away from the beach,” I replied. “But we didn’t see anything—there was a pretty thick mist over the sea.”

“My informant, ma’am,” remarked Carsie, still busied with his silver at the sideboard, “told me that he had heard that towards dusk of the evening in question a strange vessel was seen just outside the bar. It is believed, he says, in the village that the dead man was brought ashore from her.”

“I suppose there’ll be an inquest,” said Miss Ellingham. “Perhaps things will come out at that.”

“The inquest, ma’am, is fixed for to-morrow afternoon, at three o’clock,” said the butler. “In the village schoolroom, ma’am.”

“Let’s go!—let’s go!” exclaimed Bryce. “I want to hear all about it! Shall we go, Aunt Kittie?”

Miss Ellingham made no definite reply—all the same, I saw her and Bryce amongst the general public when Keziah and I entered the schoolroom on the following afternoon. They were squeezed into a corner; Keziah and myself, having been notified that we had better be present, were placed more to the front of things. There were a lot of people there whom I did not know—solicitors who didn’t come from Kingshaven (I knew every Kingshaven solicitor by sight) and police officials, and men who looked very important and mysterious. And there was a young man, very smartly dressed, a boyish, pleasant-faced sort of fellow, who sat near the local police-inspector, and now and then engaged in conversation with him: I set him down as a clerk to some of the big-wigs, especially when I saw him from time to time make notes in a little black book.

But there was really very little to make notes about. The Coroner, old Mr. Voules, whom everybody in the district knew as an old-established legal practitioner in Kingshaven, said at the very beginning that this was a mystery which was not going to be solved in a hurry, and that they could do no more that day than take a little necessary evidence, and then adjourn for a week or two until more information was forthcoming. I gathered from this that Keziah and I were not going to learn any more than we already knew, but in that I was mistaken. Veller and Captain Marigold set forth the particulars of our finding of the murdered man, and Dr. Bellairs testified as to the cause of his death. But then came into the witness-box a man whom I did not know, and who gave his name as John Watson, manager of the Collingwood Hotel at Kingshaven. He was a middle-aged, rather surly looking man, and when the Coroner asked him if he had just been taken to see the dead body he replied with a tense affirmative, and in a tone which seemed to imply that he would have much preferred to have been elsewhere.

“Did you recognise him as a man you have seen lately?” asked Mr. Voules.

“Yes!” replied Watson. “He’s a man who came to our hotel a few days ago.”

“What day was that?”

“Monday. Last Monday afternoon.”

Mr. Voules looked at his notes.

“Monday, eh?” he remarked. “Let me see?—the man was found tied to the gibbet-post late on—oh, yes, Tuesday night. Very good. So he came to your hotel, the Collingwood, in Kingshaven, on Monday afternoon. What time?”

“Tea-time! Five o’clock—or thereabouts.”

“Had you ever seen him before?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“A stranger to you. Well, what did he want?”

“Wanted to book a room. Said he might be there one night or two nights. As he’d no luggage, I asked him for a deposit. He gave me a couple of pound notes. I noticed he’d a fine lot of money in his pocket.”

“Is yours a cheap hotel?” inquired Mr. Voules.

“Moderate prices. It’s really a commercial hotel. But we get other people.”

“Did this man give you any name and address?”

“Yes. He signed the register book—the police have seen the entry. Name—Sol Cousins. Address—London.”

“Well, what happened?”

“Nothing out of the common. He had his tea. He went out; came back about nine, had a bit of supper and went to his room. I saw him at breakfast next morning, and at intervals during the day—Tuesday. He seemed to be hanging about the place, as if he expected somebody. But I never saw him with anybody, and nobody made any inquiry at the office for him. About half-past six on Tuesday evening he came to me at the office window and said he was leaving and would settle up. There was change due to him out of his two pounds deposit. I gave it to him and he went away.”

“That was the last you saw of him?”

“Yes—I saw no more of him, of course, after he walked out.”

“And that was at half-past-six on Tuesday evening?”

“Just about that time.”

Mr. Voules looked at his jury over the tops of his gold-rimmed spectacles.

“An important fact, gentlemen!” he remarked solemnly. “This man leaves a Kingshaven hotel at half-past six o’clock, alive and alert; within a few hours—five hours—he is found murdered—and in a very strange and horrible fashion!—on the beach at Middlebourne, nine miles away. A most extraordinary case!—you’re absolutely sure, Watson, that the man whose body you’ve just seen is the man you have been telling us about?”

“No doubt about that!” answered the witness, almost sneeringly. “I recognised him at once. I took particular stock of him while he was at our place!”

“Why, now?” inquired Mr. Voules.

“Because I didn’t like his looks!” said Watson. “He was respectably dressed, and, as I said, had plenty of money about him, but I didn’t like him.”

He was about to leave the witness-box when the young man whom I have mentioned as sitting near the police-inspector whispered something in the inspector’s ears—who half-rose from his seat, motioning the witness to wait.

“A question!” he said. “Did you take this man—from his speech—to be an Englishman or a foreigner?”

Watson gave his questioner a glance which signified his own complete assurance about the point raised.

“I took him for what he obviously was!” he answered. “An East-End Londoner!—and no very good class, either!”

Mr. Voules adjourned the inquest on that—for a fortnight. During that time, he remarked, the police would doubtless acquire more information, and perhaps the gentlemen of the Press—here he beamed benevolently on two or three men who had been scribbling away at a table beneath him—would give that assistance

Keziah bundled me out while the old coroner was still mumbling his platitudes—out and away before the rest of the folk could leave. She gave my arm a grip as we quitted the schoolroom.

“Ben!” she said. “They never called you or me!—and we haven’t been asked a word about Joseph Krevin!”

“Well, aren’t you glad, Keziah?” I answered. “You didn’t want”

“I don’t like it, Ben!” she interrupted hastily. “I’d rather have been questioned straight out and been done with it than feel that the police are doing things behind one’s back! They know about people, of course, and they’ll follow it up. We shall have them at our door yet!”

Keziah was rarely wrong about anything: I think she was born shrewd. That very afternoon, as she and I were just sitting down to tea, a knock came at the door, and when I went to answer it, there in the porch stood the pleasant-faced, smart young man whom I had noticed at the inquest making occasional notes in a little black book. He bade me good-afternoon smilingly, asked for Miss Heckitt, and thrust into my hand a card whereon I read: Edward Cherry, Criminal Investigation Department, New Scotland Yard, S.W.