Ten Star Clues (17 page)

“Miss Anne Hoyle has been giving her dogs a swim,” Bobby explained, “and stopped too soon for their liking.”

“Well, never mind that,” the colonel snapped. “We can't waste our time on trifles. What's worrying me is this automatic that belonged to Earl Wych. We've got to find it. We've got to.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby obediently.

“There's one thing it seems to show. You see it?”

“I can't think of anything special at the moment,” Bobby confessed.

“Well, to my mind, if the earl's own pistol was used, then that means the murder was the result of a quarrel. It wasn't premeditated.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby. “I see that. Only until we find the pistol we've nothing to show it was the weapon actually used.”

“No, I know, that's why we've got to find it somehow,” declared the colonel. “It can't be far away.”

Before Bobby could answer the door opened and Bertram came into the room and stood there in the doorway, looking at them sulkily.

Sulkily the man who, by the recent tragedy, succeeded to the ancient title of Wych, the castle with all its treasures accumulated through the centuries, lands that still stretched far around, came slowly forward. With his hands thrust deep into his pockets, his shoulders hunched, he stood there looking at them scowlingly, and Bobby thought:—

“He's angry. He's frightened. He's very frightened. Why?”

The stenographer was thinking:—

“Gabbler or mumbler?”

He soon knew, for Bertram burst into a torrent of angry complaint. They had asked him plenty of questions already. Why did they want to start again? He knew nothing about it. Nothing he could tell them. He had never left his room all the night. Slept all the time. He had heard nothing. Slept like a child. He wasn't going to answer any more questions without having a lawyer present. Clinton Wells was hanging about somewhere. He wouldn't say another word unless Clinton Wells were present.

“My lord,” began Colonel Glynne formally, “if your lordship will permit me—”

But the young man interrupted him even more angrily.

“Don't lose any time, do you?” he snarled. “They all started ‘my lording' me right away. Can't they wait till the old man's in his grave?”

“You succeed to the title immediately,” the colonel told him, looking somewhat puzzled. “There is no interregnum.”

“No—what's that?”

“I mean there is no interval,” the colonel explained. “The moment the holder of a title dies, the next in succession takes it. You become Earl Wych automatically.”

“Not,” interrupted Bertram roughly, “not if that guy Ralph can stop me.”

“He can, of course, challenge your claim,” agreed the colonel, “but I suppose, as you satisfied the late earl of your identity, you will have no trouble in proving it. In any case, that has nothing to do with us. Not a police matter. We are only here to conduct an investigation into a murder. I take it for granted, since you were accepted by the late earl, that you are his grandson, and therefore the present earl. And I do hope you will just answer a few questions. There are one or two things we are not clear about, minor points. You see it's important we should know exactly every one's point of view and what every one thinks.”

“Oh, all right, go ahead,” the young man answered, and flung himself into a chair, looking now a little less sulky but still wary and uneasy.

Bobby was reflecting that he made no display of grief or even ordinary concern at his grandfather's shocking death. Perhaps not so very surprising after so long an absence. More surprising that he showed no excitement and even little interest in his inheritance. Yet surely it was no small thing to succeed to so ancient a title, such large possessions and responsibilities. Even if, in spite of the recognition accorded him by his grandparents, he were an impostor, one would have expected him to betray some exultation or satisfaction at the prospect of securing so glittering a prize. Yet he seemed merely sulky and worried.

“I believe,” the colonel was saying now, “there was some sort of scuffle after dinner last night. Between you and Ralph Hoyle?”

“He got me when I wasn't ready,” complained Bertram. “He's sore with me. He was sore with the old man. What about asking him a few questions? Clinton Wells says now he can go into court. Put in a petition or something. He couldn't before, because there wasn't anything to petition about. That's why.”

The colonel blinked. He didn't quite follow. Bobby said:—

“You mean you think Ralph Hoyle murdered his uncle in order to bring matters to a head and allow your claim to be tested in court?”

“That's right,” Bertram said. “That's why he did it. Or perhaps it was just they started scrapping, and that's the way it ended. Anyhow, he's got it fixed now so the old man can't testify. Only when he's hanged for it, that won't do him much good, will it?”

“There is no proof at present of the guilt of any one,” the colonel said, a little stiffly. “I would like to mention another matter. I understand you said in the course of the scuffle with Ralph Hoyle that Miss Anne Hoyle possessed an automatic pistol?”

“That's right,” Bertram agreed. “She showed it me. A colt automatic three-two. Knew how to use it, too. You could see that. Bossy that girl is. Bossy. Thinks she ought to run the show here, only she can't, because she's a girl, so she thinks she'll run it all the same, and every one else as well. Bossy,” he repeated moodily.

“Did you ask her why she had it, or where she got it from?” the colonel asked.

“No. I don't ask her things,” Bertram answered, sulky again. “She does all the asking necessary. And more. But she had that three-two automatic all right, handling it like she knew how.” He stopped and stared. A new idea had evidently occurred to him. “You mean you think it's her?” he said. “I wouldn't put it past her. She's tough.”

“Good heavens,” exclaimed the colonel, extremely startled by this unexpected suggestion. “Why on earth —well, why should she? I mean murder, her grandfather?”

“Well, that makes me earl right away, don't it?” Bertram replied slowly, “and then if she picks me up, then she's countess and runs the show and me too, she reckons. Bossy, she is, that girl. Bossy. I know it.”

“My lord,” began the colonel, profoundly shocked, for in his scheme of things, one did not suspect young ladies of the aristocracy of that sort of thing. Girls might to-day be a bit inclined to kick over the traces, but they did draw the line at shooting their grandfathers. At least he hoped so. “Really, really,” he protested, while Bobby resumed his abstracted contemplation of the ceiling above his head.

“Well, why not?” asked Bertram, looking quite eager. “Old man was bumped off about half-past eleven. Well, she wasn't in her room at half-past eleven or thereabouts.”

“Are you sure of that?” the colonel asked doubtfully.

“Dead sure. The door of her room was open. I wondered why. I had a peep. Just peeped in. She wasn't there. Where was she?”

“That will be inquired into,” the colonel said stiffly. “She will be asked.”

Bertram looked alarmed again.

“You won't let on it was me told you?” he asked earnestly.

“Nothing will be said that is not necessary,” the colonel answered. “Your lordship may be asked to give evidence, of course. Apart from that, nothing will be said that is not essential to the inquiry.”

“She'll have it in for me if she gets to know it was me told you,” Bertram muttered, and did not look as if he found much comfort in the colonel's assurances.

Bobby and the colonel engaged in a whispered conversation. Bobby received permission to ask a few questions on his own account. To the surprise of Colonel Glynne, these began with a long speech of congratulation to Bertram on his succession to so splendid a position.

“A position the Earls Wych have always so worthily upheld,” Bobby went on smoothly. “To-day, with war upon us, there will be so many opportunities. It was when Napoleon threatened invasion that the Earl Wych of that day raised the Wychwood Yeomanry. He was the first colonel. They are mechanised now, and they will be very proud to have once more in their ranks an Earl Wych. The late earl was honorary colonel, you know.”

“Yes, but, steady on,” interrupted Bertram, “what are you getting at? I'm no colonel. I don't know a thing about soldiering.”

“It will have all the more effect,” Bobby explained, “when you join up as a private.”

“Me?”

“You'll just be in time,” Bobby told him. “The Wychwood Yeomanry will be among the first to go to France. Light mechanized troops will be badly wanted for scouting and to head the advance.”

“Kidding, aren't you?” Bertram asked doubtfully. “Earls and lords and such like aren't privates. Stands to reason.”

“Every one is liable under the new Conscription Act,” Bobby explained smoothly. “Dukes and dustmen, earls, lords, and tramps, all of us.” He added slowly:— “An Earl Wych who wasn't the first to come forward—why, people would hardly believe he was an Earl Wych at all.”

“Oh, that's it, is it?” Bertram growled.

Then he was silent. Bobby continued to watch him closely. Colonel Glynne was looking more and more puzzled. The stenographer seized the opportunity to sharpen his pencil. Bertram said presently:—

“If you're an earl and such like, you don't have to. There's ways. What's the good of being a lord if there isn't? I'm not yellow,” he asserted, “but I don't believe in war. What's the sense of sitting about in a trench being shot at and nothing to eat either?” He added darkly:— “If you're so mighty keen, why don't you go yourself?”

“Reserved occupation,” explained Bobby carelessly; “police, I mean. But not the peerage.”

“Think you're O.K. then, don't you?” Bertram snarled, and Bobby smiled, as if he thought so, too, though indeed his resignation from the police had already been handed in and instantly rejected. Nor were his efforts at using influence to get permission to enlist meeting with much better success. For indeed this was at a time when the gate admitting to the army was as though guarded by a flaming sword turning all ways at once. Bobby went on:—

“By the way, I've just been wondering, it just struck me, talking of the peerage, I suppose. Can you tell me why it is always Earl Wych? I thought you were always Earl of Something—of Derby or Oxford or wherever it is.”

“Saying it short, I suppose,” Bertram answered. “I don't know. I never thought. Why?” he asked suspiciously.

“Oh, I just wondered,” Bobby answered, and Bertram looked still more suspicious, as if scenting a trap but yet unable to imagine what it could be. “Of course, there isn't any place called Wych, is there? There's Midwych and Wychwood and so on, but not plain Wych. Not that it matters. One thing more. You are clear that Miss Anne Hoyle was not in her room about half-past eleven last night?”

“That's right.”

“You are certain of that because you saw the door open and you looked into the room and you saw it was empty?”

“That's right.”

“You say, too, in your statement that you and Miss Hoyle went up to bed about eleven. You went to your respective rooms. You went to bed at once. You slept all night. You heard no sound.”

“That's right.”

“You see,” explained Bobby, “I don't quite understand how in that case you could be near Miss Hoyle's room at half-past eleven, see her door was open, look inside, and so on. I think her room is some distance from yours, in a different corridor in fact. It looks as if you did leave your room, doesn't it?”

Bertram looked very taken aback.

“I... I...” he stammered, then recovered himself. “Oh, I was just going to the bathroom,” he said jauntily. “That's all. I forgot that, didn't think it worth mentioning, anyhow.”

“I see,” mused Bobby. “But that means you went rather a long way out of your way, doesn't it? There are three bathrooms on the first floor apparently. One near your room. One farther away. Only the third, which is the farthest away of all three, would take you near Miss Hoyle's room.”

“Well, that's the one I went to, that's all.”

“Can you tell us what reason you had for going to the bathroom farthest away?”

“There was someone in the other—door locked,” Bertram explained.

“We must find out who that was,” Bobby mused.

“Well, perhaps there wasn't any one, perhaps the door stuck,” Bertram suggested. “It often does. See here. Are you trying to fix anything on me? or make out there was anything between Anne and me?”

“Why, no,” Bobby answered. “How could there be if she wasn't there? Now, about that automatic. Miss Hoyle showed it you. Why was that? Any special reason?”

“No, of course not, why should there be, just showing it, that's all,” Bertram declared, but not too confidently. “She can go to blazes any time she likes and take her automatic with her. Not my style. You won't go and tell her I said so?” he added, again with that touch of uneasiness in his manner.

He was once more assured that everything he said would be regarded as strictly confidential unless and until required for use as evidence. Nor, once again, did he seem too satisfied with the assurance. He explained once or twice that he thought Anne Hoyle a mighty fine girl.

“Though bossy,” he added. “Knows she would be just It if she wasn't a girl, and means to be all the same.”

“But that is impossible,” Bobby pointed out. “There is no provision for female inheritance. The title would become extinct, I understand, and the estates go to very distant cousins in America.”

“There's ways,” Bertram answered, and looked sulky again. “There's ways. She's got her own idea.”