J. S. Fletcher

“ Never you trust anybody, Ben, that walks about as if they wore velvet-soled slippers! Yes, he was gone, and our back door left open.”
“He must have known of that five-forty train to Kingshaven,” I said musingly. “You aren’t sorry, Keziah?”
“I’d as soon have the devil in my house as Joseph Krevin!” she answered. “That’s a fact, Ben! No, I’m glad to be rid of him. But there’ll be trouble. Of course it’s known that he’s been here; and now, in view of that murder, and his going off secret, like this, things will be said, and we shall have the police nosing round. Well, I shall keep nothing back! ”

“ And the old house got quieter and quieter and quieter—you could feel the quiet. If Keziah had come home unexpectedly, I wouldn’t have minded if she’d talked for a solid hour about the family silver, and its hallmarks, and its history.
I got sick of that stillness by nine o’clock, and I went to bed. And being still weak after my illness, I soon fell asleep—dropping off suddenly. But I woke more suddenly—to hear two separate sounds. One was the sound of our old grandfather clock—it was striking midnight, twelve long, dull strokes. ”

“ Our village, Middlebourne, lay behind our house—a collection of straggling farm steads and cottages, through which ran the great highroad from London to Kingshaven; as far as we were concerned, there might not have been any village there at all, for we were well out of it; from our windows and our garden we could see only three objects which had any relation to human life, and as regards two of them, it was a relation of the far past. ”

“ I was flattered at being asked such a question by a man, who, young as he seemed, was, after all, a genuine detective. He saw that I was—and he laughed, and gave me an encouraging nod.
“You’re old enough to have an opinion!” he said. “Come, now?”
“Well, I think it’s a very queer thing that it should happen just when Uncle Joseph Krevin was here!” I replied, after a moment’s thought. “Besides, Uncle Joseph’s movements were strange.” I went on to tell him about the midnight visit, and the bag on the porch, and all the rest of it. ”

“ He’s come down here for no good, Ben, and I’ll be truly thankful to see his big back turn out of that gate!”
“You wouldn’t ask him to go away, Keziah?” I suggested.
KEZIAH smoothed out the folds of the black silk apron which she always wore of an evening, regarding them with her head on one side.
“Well, flesh and blood is flesh and blood, Ben,” she answered; “and after all, he belongs to our particular blend, doesn’t he? You can’t very well show the door to a man who’s your own mother’s brother, can you, however bad you believe him to be? ”

“ 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, 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?” ”

“ I saw her face change. “You don’t mean to say that you’re a policeman!” she exclaimed incredulously. “A smart young gentleman like you!”
“I hope I’m not the less fitted for my job because of that, ma’am,” replied our visitor, with a laugh of enjoyment at Keziah’s bluntness. “I believe I’ve the pleasure of seeing Miss Heckitt—Miss Keziah Heckitt?”
“You can come in,” said Keziah, motioning him to enter. “Perhaps you’ll take a cup of tea? It’s all ready. Of course, I saw you at the inquest, but I never dreamed that you’d anything to do with the police. ”

“ You’re a great deal stronger today than you were yesterday—I wouldn’t leave you if you weren’t, even for Mrs. Hozier. And you’ll manage, easy enough; you can get your own supper tonight and breakfast in the morning; you could even make shift to get your dinner tomorrow, if I’m not back in time. But—you’ll not leave the house, Ben?”
“You can bet on that, Keziah!” I assured her. “I sha’n’t!”
“Then we’ll have our tea, and I’ll put things to rights, and then I’ll make ready and catch the six o’clock train,” she said. “I don’t like going, Ben: I’m not one for leaving home at any time. ”

“ VELLER promised to do what he could to keep me from molestation and went away. I thought hard when he had gone and while I was finishing my breakfast. Having been destined, at my own wish, for the legal profession ever since I was twelve years of age, and sent by Keziah to Kingshaven Grammar School with that aim in view, I knew rather more than my sister did about the things we had just discussed, and I foresaw trouble and annoyance over Uncle Joseph Krevin.
“Keziah!” I said. “I’m afraid it’s not much good asking Veller to keep people away. People will come who wont be kept away!” ”

“ Veller waved a big hand toward them as he strode in front.
“These two,” he said with one of his widest grins, “has made what they call a discovery. May ha’ something to do with this here job, and mayn’t. However, they come straight to me about it just now.”
Bryce Ellingham shoved himself forward.
“Of course, it’s a discovery, and a most important one!” he exclaimed in his cocksure fashion. “We came to find you about it, Mr. Cherry, but as you weren’t about, we told Veller, because in these things time’s important, isn’t it? Look at this, now! ”

“ But—he’s here! And he was out this afternoon, and he was out this evening, after dark. Where? On what business? Whom did he see? And who’s this strange man—murdered by men that row away as quietly as they came? Here’s murder, black, foul, horrible, at our very door, Ben, and he’s there—sleeping in our best bed!”
We went into the house, and Keziah marched straight up the stair. The light in the hall was still burning at full, and it shone broadly on Uncle Joseph Krevin’s door. ”

“ 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! ”

“ She glanced at Keziah and at me. “Ben I know already,” she continued with a smile. “And Miss Heckitt will forgive me, I am sure, if I inflict my troubles upon her—the news of them will doubtless be all over the neighborhood before—”
“That entirely depends, ma’am!” interrupted Cherry sharply. “It depends upon what you tell me. I know enough of Miss Heckitt and her brother to know that they wont tell anything they ought not to tell. But—what have you to tell? What is it you think you have been robbed of?”
“Think!” exclaimed Miss Ellingham. ”

“ But in the old days men had been hanged from that bar—pirates, smugglers, murderers; and then their bodies had swung in chains until the flesh dropped off on the surf-swept rocks beneath. Hence the local name of the spit of sand and group of rocks—Gallowstree Point. ”

“ There’s a sort of recess, something like a cave, there. I picked up the coin in that cave, lying among some seaweed—”
“Look as if it had been there long?” interrupted Cherry. “Any sand on it?”
“No; it was just as it is now,” replied Bryce. “Looked as if somebody dropped it recently, and it had fallen or rolled among the seaweed. But that’s not all,” he continued, growing more and more important. “There are footmarks in that recess that I’m sure you ought to see. A man’s—a big man’s too! And they lead straight across the sand: firm white sand it is, there, and they’re the only marks on it. ”

“ Veller hastily examined some of his pockets and withdrew his hand, looking mystified.
“Money there!” he exclaimed. “Seems plenty o’ money, too. I don’t understand this, Captain. He aint been robbed!”
“Bah!” said Captain Marigold impatiently. “Do you think robbery’s the only motive for murder? Something deeper and darker than that in this, my lad! Hadn’t you better get the body up to the village and have a proper examination?”
“There’s folks coming,” answered Veller, nodding at two or three sparks of lights across the beach. “I thought others than us would hear those screams. ”

“ Honest and innocent men, Keziah, don’t leave their relations’ houses at five o’clock in the morning, without as much as a hasty farewell; nor—”
“As if I didn’t know all that as well as you do, my lad!” broke in Keziah. “Don’t you start haranguing me! You’re not a judge yet, nor a lawyer neither. And I don’t want to hear another word about Joseph Krevin! This is my day for cleaning out the best parlor, and I don’t allow anybody or anything to come between me and my work. You put on your overcoat, and go for a bit of a walk in this nice sunshine—it’ll do you good.” ”

“ Can’t stand being woke up suddenly, nor get startled. And you gave me a shock!”
“Do you know anything of that man?” demanded Keziah. “You’ve heard him described—Ben described him! Come, now!”
He took another hearty pull at the brandy and water, got up from his undignified position, and shook his head.
“No!” he answered suavely. “Oh, no, Keziah and Benjamin, I don’t know the man you speak of! How should I? A man with gold rings in his ears, and a scar across his left cheek, say you? Oh, no, I don’t know any such person! How should I? ”

“ I made an inquiry or two among my servants, and then came out to find you, as I had heard there was a Scotland Yard man in the village.”
“What was this principal object?” asked Cherry.
“A Kang-he vase,” replied Miss Ellingham, “—worth—I don’t know how much!”
“And what is a Kang-he vase?” inquired Cherry, quietly. “Something ancient?”
“Chinese pottery,” answered Miss Ellingham. “It is stuff, pottery, you know, made by the old Chinese potters about—oh, four thousand years ago! Collectors of it, who of course can only be very wealthy people, will give any price for it. ”

“ Lives have been lost in defense of them—yes, and in trying to get hold of them. I remember,” she added with a queer little laugh, “that when I was given my vase, and showed it to a friend of mine in Bombay, he said that he wouldn’t have such a thing in his house for a fortune, and that I’d better not let any Chinaman know I’d got it! But—I’m not given to cultivating panics.”
“And you reflected, doubtless, that you were coming home, to a country where people don’t cut throats or break into houses for the sake of a bit of pottery!” observed Cherry. “Still, ma’am, there is one thing you forgot!” ”

“ We’re half Krevins, ourselves—though we’re not bad eggs, such as he is.”
“He seems quiet and civil enough,” said I, “and in a way, a bit afraid of you, Keziah. He’s very humble and polite to you, anyway.”
Keziah sniffed again.
“I’m afraid of a man like that when he comes extra-polite!” she said. “That’s all put on! When a man of that sort gets soft-sawdery, Ben, you look out for yourself. I’d rather see a burglar with a dark lantern and a pistol in his hand than a man like that, all soft speech and sugary smiles—far rather! ”

“ It was Monday night when Krevin came to your house, wasn’t it?”
“Monday midnight,” I said.
“Well, we’ll have to find out where he was on Monday evening,” he continued, “between being here and turning up at your porch. It’s an odd thing, putting everything together, that Cousins, being somewhere about—he was certainly at Kingshaven, at the Collingwood Hotel, on Monday night—didn’t turn up here at the Crab and Lobster on Monday afternoon. And—where were those two to meet on Tuesday—in accordance with this card?” ”

“ And when I come along from London and got out at the station, I gives that there bit of a bag to a man what had come along with me in the train for the last few miles and said he knew this part, to leave for me at Heckitts’. That’d be the man you see.”
“Queer time for a man to come!” I said. “It was midnight!”
“Aye, well, it’d be past ten o’clock when I give him the bag,” he replied. “Late train, you see. No, I wasn’t nowheres about here last night, Ben, my boy—miles off, in the country. Seeing—ah—an old friend o’ mine. And what may you be thinking of doing with yourself, my lad? ”