The Mystery At Lover's Cave

Clouston Hall, the home of Sir Henry and Lady Woodthorpe, was a stolidly built Georgian house, with the usual aspect of square solidity so happily typical of its period. It stood in its own grounds of nine or ten acres, and as Roger and the inspector made their way up the trim drive the setting sun was burnishing the mellow brick of its front to a deeper red and slanting over the velvety expanse of lawn, unprofaned by tennis nets or chalk lines, which faced it across the broad carriage-sweep.

“By Jove!” Roger exclaimed softly. “It’s a fine picture, isn’t it? There’s something about these big Georgian country houses, you know, Inspector, that does stir the imagination. Can’t you just see that carriage-sweep stiff with huntsmen in red coats and jolly red faces, all engulfing a couple of gallons of home-brew before going off to give Reynard the run of his life?”

“It’s a tidy bit of property,” the inspector agreed. “But they’re child’s-play for burglars, these old houses are.” To every man his own point of view.

“I wonder what it is that always makes one associate Georgian houses with hunting scenes,” Roger mused. “Must be the red, I suppose. Red brick, red coats, red faces. Yes, red seems to be the key-colour of the times. What would Rowlandson have done if there’d been no red on his palette? He’d have had to draw people without any noses at all.”

They reached the white porch, and the inspector placed a large thumb over the un-Georgian electric bell-push. “You’ll remember, Mr. Sheringham, won’t you?” he said half apologetically. “We’re here on official business, and it’s me who’s got to do all the talking.”

“Did I or did I not give you my solemn word, Inspector?” queried Roger in hurt tones. “Besides, I would have you know that at school my nickname was ‘Oyster.’ ‘Oyster Sheringham,’ I was invariably called.”

“There’s often an untrue word spoken in jest,” murmured the inspector with a face of preternatural innocence.

Before Roger could reply suitably the door was opened by a large and fish-like butler.

There are few men in this country who can remain their normal selves in face of a truly fish-like specimen of the English butler. Roger’s admiration of his companion increased almost visibly as he watched him confront this monumental dolphin (that was the word which rose unbidden into Roger’s mind the moment the door opened) without so much as a blench.

“I want to see Mr. Colin Woodthorpe,” said the inspector heartily, in a voice free from the slightest tremor. “Is he at home?”

“I will enquire, sir,” returned the dolphin coldly, eyeing their dusty appearance with obvious pain, and made as if to close the door. “Would you care to leave your name?”

The inspector placed a large foot in the aperture. “You needn’t put on any of those frills with me,” he said with the utmost cheerfulness. “You know whether the gentleman I want to see is at home or not.” He paused and looked the other in the eye. “Is he?” he shot out with startling abruptness.

Roger watched the dolphin’s reaction to this mode of attack with some interest. His gills opened and closed rapidly, and a look of distinct alarm appeared in his pale sandy eyes. Roger had never seen an alarmed butler before, and he certainly never expected to see one again.

“He—he was in to dinner, sir,” gasped the dolphin, almost before he knew what he was doing.

“Ha!” observed the inspector, evidently satisfied. “Then you cut along, my man, and tell him that Inspector Moresby of Scotland Yard would like a word or two with him. And you needn’t shout it out for all the rest of the world to hear, understand?” It appeared that the dolphin understood. “Very well. Now show us somewhere where we can wait.”

The chastened dolphin led them into a small room on the left of the big hall, the gun-room. As the door closed behind him, Roger seized the inspector’s hand and wrung it reverently. “Now I see how you can arrest seventeen armed criminals in the most dangerous dive in Limehouse with nothing but a walking-stick and a safety-pin,” he said in awe-struck tones. “ ‘My man!’ And yet the heavens remain intact!”

“I never stand nonsense from butlers,” remarked the inspector modestly.

Roger shielded his eyes and groaned.

Colin Woodthorpe, who made his appearance a couple of minutes later, proved to be a pleasant-looking young man of some five- or six-and-twenty, with fair hair and a sanguine complexion, big and sturdy; he was wearing a dinner-jacket, but Roger instinctively saw him in gaiters and riding-breeches. He was perfectly self-possessed.

“Inspector Moresby?” he asked with a little smile, picking out Roger’s companion without hesitation.

“That’s me, sir,” assented the inspector in his usual genial tones. “Sorry to bother you, but duty’s duty, as you know. I hope that butler of yours didn’t make too much pother. I told him not to. Scotland Yard has a nasty sound in the ears of the old people, I know.”

“Oh, no,” laughed the young man. “As a matter of fact I was alone, though it was very kind of you to think of warning him. Well, what’s it all about, Inspector? Sit down, won’t you? Cigarette?”

“Well, thank you, sir,” The inspector helped himself to a cigarette from the other’s case and disposed his bulk in a comfortable leather-covered armchair. Roger followed suit.

As the young man sat down, the inspector edged his chair round so as to be able to look him directly in the face. “As I said, sir, I’m sorry to bother you, but it’s this matter of Mrs. Vane’s death I’m looking into.” He paused significantly.

Roger could have sworn that a look of apprehension flitted for an instant across the young man’s face, but his voice when he spoke after only a second’s hesitation was perfectly under control.

“Oh, yes?” he said easily (almost too easily, Roger felt). “And why have you come to me?”

The inspector’s hand shot out toward him, holding the piece of paper he had already drawn from his pocket. “To ask you to explain this, sir, if you please,” he said very much more brusquely.

Colin Woodthorpe looked at the paper curiously; then, as his brain took in the significance of the words written upon it he flushed deeply. “Where—how did you get hold of this?” he asked in a voice that was none too steady.

The inspector explained briefly that the original had been found among the rocks close to where the body was lying. “I want you to explain it, if you please, sir,” he concluded. “I need not point out to you its importance as far as we are concerned. You ask the lady to meet you, and on the very day you arrange she meets her death. If you kept the appointment, it seems to us that you ought to be able to shed some light on that death. I need hardly ask you whether you did keep it?”

The young man had recovered himself to some extent. He frowned and crossed his legs. “Look here, I don’t understand this. I thought Mrs. Vane’s death was an accident. They’ve had the inquest, and that was the verdict. Why are you ‘looking into it,’ as you say?”

“Well, sir,” the inspector returned in his usual cheerful tones, “I came here to ask questions, not to answer them. Still, I don’t mind answering that one. The fact of the matter is that we’re not at all sure that Mrs. Vane’s death was an accident.”

There was no doubt that the young man was genuinely startled. “Good Heavens!” he cried. “What on earth do you mean? What else could it be?”

The inspector looked at him quizzically. “Well—it might have been suicide, mightn’t it?” he said slowly.

“Suicide!” Woodthorpe sat up with a jerk and his rosy face paled. “You don’t—you don’t really mean to say you think it might have been, Inspector?”

“Have you any particular reason for thinking it might have been, sir?” the inspector shot out.

The young man sat back in his chair again, moistening his lips with a quick movement of his tongue. “No, of course not,” he muttered. “I don’t understand.”

“Oh, yes, you do, sir,” retorted the inspector grimly. “Now look here, Mr. Woodthorpe,” he went on in a more kindly voice. “I want you to put down your cards on the table and tell me the whole story. Believe me, it’s far and away the best thing to do, from your point of view as well as ours. It’s bound to come out in the end you know. And⸺”

Woodthorpe had risen to his feet. “Excuse me, Inspector,” he interrupted stiffly, “I must repeat that I don’t understand you. I have nothing to tell you. Is that all you wished to see me about?”

He walked toward the door as if inviting the other to rise and take his departure, but the inspector blandly ignored the hint.

“Of course I know what you’re feeling, sir,” he remarked. “You’re trying to shield the lady’s reputation, I know that. Well, the best way you can do so is to answer my questions. I’ve got to get my information, and if I get it from you we may be able to keep it between ourselves; if you force me to try other sources, I’m afraid there’s no hope of keeping it dark. At present (if you haven’t given yourselves away elsewhere) there’s nobody but you and us who knows that you were Mrs. Vane’s lover.”

Woodthorpe looked at him steadily. “Inspector,” he said slowly, “may I say that you are being offensive?”

“Can’t help that, sir, I’m afraid,” replied the inspector cheerily. “And if you’re not going to be open with me, I daresay you’ll find me more offensive still. And you can’t bluff me, sir, you know. Not that I blame you for trying; I’d do the same myself for a lady I’d got into a mess with.” The inspector’s choice of words may not have been fortunate, but his sentiment was admirable. “Still, you’ve given yourself away too much in this note, you know, sir—besides what I’ve been able to find out elsewhere. For instance, I know that Mrs. Vane had been your mistress for some little time, that you’d got tired of her and were trying to break with her, and that she was threatening you if you did. I know all the essentials, you see. It’s only a few details I want you to tell me, and I’d much rather have them from you than from anybody else.”

The young man had put up a good fight, but it was plain to Roger that he now accepted defeat. Indeed, it was difficult to see what else he could do. Dropping back into his chair, he acknowledged the truth of the inspector’s words by a tacit hiatus. “If I answer your questions,” he said curtly, “will you treat what I tell you as private and confidential?”

“As far as I possibly can, sir,” the inspector promised. “It’s no wish of mine to drag out unnecessary scandals, or make things awkward which might have been better left undisturbed.”

“I can’t see what you’re driving at, in any case,” Woodthorpe said wearily, lighting another cigarette. “Mrs. Vane is dead, isn’t she? What does it matter whether her death was accident or suicide? It can’t help her to have these things raked over.”

“It’s my duty to look into it, sir,” replied the inspector primly. “Now, when I mentioned the word ‘suicide’ just now you were startled, weren’t you? Did it cross your mind that she might have killed herself because you insisted on breaking with her, and she didn’t want to let you go?”

Woodthorpe flushed. “Yes,” he admitted reluctantly. “It did.”

“Ah!” Having succeeded in impressing the young man with his own mental acuteness, the inspector proceeded to the questions of real importance. “Did you keep that appointment, sir?”

“No.” Reconciled as he now was to the necessity of being frank, Woodthorpe spoke with no hesitation or sullenness. “You were wrong about that note of mine. It’s nearly three weeks old. That appointment was for a fortnight ago last Tuesday, and I did keep it then.”