Clouds of Witness

He whistled thoughtfully. "Still, when it comes to the gallows-"

"Do you suppose, Wimsey, that your brother really contemplates the gallows?" asked Parker.

"I think Murbles put it to him pretty straight," said Lord Peter.

"Quite so. But does he actually realise-imaginatively-that it is possible to hang an English peer for murder on circumstantial evidence?"

Lord Peter considered this.

"Imagination isn't Gerald's strong point," he admitted.

"I suppose they do hang peers? They can't be beheaded on Tower Hill or anything?"

"I'll look it up," said Parker; "but they certainly hanged Earl Ferrers in 1760."

"Did they, though?" said Lord Peter. "Ah, well, as the old pagan said of the Gospels, after all, it was a long time ago, and we'll hope it wasn't true."

"It's true enough," said Parker; "and he was dissected and anatomised afterwards. But that part of the treatment is obsolete."

"We'll tell Gerald about it," said Lord Peter, "and persuade him to take the matter seriously. Which are the boots he wore Wednesday night?"

"These," said Parker, "but the fool's cleaned them."

"Yes," said Lord Peter bitterly. "H'm! a good heavy lace-up boot-the sort that sends the blood to the head."

"He wore leggings, too," said Parker; "these." Rather elaborate preparations for a stroll in the garden. But, as you were just going to say, the night was wet. I must ask Helen if Gerald ever suffered from insomnia."

"I did. She said she thought not as a rule, but that he occasionally had toothache, which made him restless."

"It wouldn't send one out of doors on a cold night though. Well, let's get downstairs."

They passed through the billiard-room, where the Colonel was making a sensational break, and into the small conservatory which led from it.

Lord Peter looked gloomily round at the chrysanthemums and boxes of bulbs.

"These damned flowers look jolly healthy," he said.

"Do you mean you've been letting the gardener swarm in here every day to water 'em?"

"Yes," said Parker apologetically, "I did. But he's had strict orders only to walk on these mats."

"Good," said Lord Peter. "Take 'em up, then, and let's get to work."

With his lens to his eye he crawled cautiously over the floor.

"They all came through this way, I suppose," he said.

"Yes," said Parker. "I've identified most of the marks. People went in and out. Here's the Duke. He comes in from outside. He trips over the body." (Parker had opened the outer door and lifted some matting, to show a trampled patch of gravel, discoloured with blood.) "He kneels by the body. Here are his knees and toes. Afterwards he goes into the house, through the conservatory, leaving a good impression in black mud and gravel just inside the door." Lord Peter squatted carefully over the marks.

"It's lucky the gravel's so soft here," he said.

"Yes. It's just a patch. The gardener tells me it gets trampled and messy just here owing to his corning cans from the water-trough. They fill the trough from the well every so often, and then carry the water away in cans. It got extra bad this year, and they put down fresh gravel a few weeks ago."

"Pity they didn't extend their labours all down the path while they were about it," grunted Lord Peter, who was balancing himself precariously on a small piece of sacking. "Well, that bears out old Gerald so far. Here's an elephant been over this bit of box border. Who's that?"

"Oh, that's a constable. I put him at eighteen stone. He's nothing. And this rubber sole with a patch on it is Craikes. He's all over the place. This squelchy-looking thing is Mr. Arbuthnot in bedroom slippers, and the galoshes are Mr. Pettigrew-Robinson. We can dismiss all those. But now here, just coming over the threshold, is a woman's foot in a strong shoe. I make that out to be Lady Mary's. Here it is again, just at the edge of the well. She came out to examine the body."

"Quite so," said Peter; "and then she came in again, with a few grains of red gravel on her shoes. Well, that's all right. Hullo!"

On the outer side of the conservatory were some shelves for small plants, and, beneath these, a damp and dismal bed of earth, occupied, in a sprawling and lackadaisical fashion, by stringy cactus plants and a sporadic growth of maidenhair fern, and masked by a row of large chrysanthemums in pots.

"What've you got?" inquired Parker, seeing his friend peering into this green retreat.

Lord Peter withdrew his long nose from between two [garbled] and said: "Who put what down here?"

Parker hastened to the place. There, among the cacti, was certainly the clear mark of some oblong object with corners, that had been stood out of sight on the earth behind the pots.

"It's a good thing Gerald's gardener ain't one of those conscientious blighters that can't even let a cactus alone for the winter," said Lord Peter, "or he'd've tenderly lifted these little drooping heads-oh! damn and blast the beastly plant for a crimson porcupine! You measure it."

Parker measured it.

"Two and a half feet by six inches," he said. "And fairly heavy, for it's sunk in and broken the plants about. Was it a bar of anything?"

"I fancy not," said Lord Peter. "The impression is deeper on the farther side. I think it was something bulky set up on edge, and leaned against the glass. If you asked for my private opinion I should guess that it was a suitcase."

"A suit-case!" exclaimed Parker. "Why a suitcase?"

"Why indeed? I think we may assume that it didn't stay here very long. It would have been exceedingly visible in the daytime. But somebody might very well have shoved it in here if they were caught with it-say at three o'clock in the morning-and didn't want it to be seen."

"Then when did they take it away?"

"Almost immediately, I should say. Before daylight, anyhow, or even Inspector Craikes could hardly have failed to see it."

"It's not the doctor's bag, I suppose?"

"No-unless the doctor's a fool. Why put a bag conveniently in a damp and dirty place out of the way when every law of sense and convenience would urge him to pop it down handy by the body? No. Unless Craikes or the gardener has been leaving things about, this was thrust away there on Wednesday night by Gerald, by Cathcart-or, I suppose, by Mary. Nobody else could be supposed to have anything to hide."

"Yes," said Parker, "one person."

"Who's that?"

"The Person Unknown."

"Who's he?"

For answer Mr. Parker proudly stepped to a row of wooden frames, carefully covered with matting. Stripping this away, with the air of a bishop unveiling a memorial, he disclosed a V-shaped line of footprints.

"These," said Parker, "belong to nobody-to nobody I've ever seen or heard of, I mean."

"Hurray!" said Peter.

" Then downwards/From the steep hill's edge/They tracked the footmarks small (only they're largish)."

"No such luck," said Parker. "It's more a case of:

" They followed from the earthy bank

Those footsteps one by one,

Into the middle of the plank;

And farther there were none!"

"Great poet, Wordsworth," said Lord Peter; "how often I've had that feeling. Now let's see. These footmarks-a man's No. 10 with worn-down heels and a patch on the left inner side-advance from the hard bit of the path which shows no footmarks; they come to the body-here, where that pool of blood is. I say, that's rather odd, don't you think? No? Perhaps not. There are no footmarks under the body? Can't say, it's such a mess. Well, the Unknown gets so far-here's a footmark deeply pressed in. Was he just going to throw Cathcart into the well? He hears a sound; he starts; he turns; he runs on tiptoe-into the shrubbery, by Jove!"

"Yes," said Parker, "and the tracks come out on one of the grass paths in the wood, and there's an end of them."

"H'm! Well, we'll follow them later. Now where did they come from?"

Together the two friends followed the path away from the house. The gravel, except for the little patch before the conservatory, was old and hard, and afforded but little trace, particularly as the last few days had been rainy. Parker, however, was able to assure Wimsey that there had been definite traces of dragging and bloodstains.

"What sort of bloodstains? Smears?"

"Yes, smears mostly. There were pebbles displaced, too, all the way-and now here is something odd."

It was the clear impression of the palm of a man's hand heavily pressed into the earth of a herbaceous border, the fingers pointing towards the house. On the path the gravel had been scraped up in two long furrows.

There was blood on the grass border between the path and the bed, and the edge of the grass was broken and trampled.

"I don't like that," said Lord Peter.

"Ugly, isn't it?" agreed Parker.

"Poor devil!" said Peter. "He made a determined effort to hang on here. That explains the blood by the conservatory door. But what kind of a devil drags a corpse that isn't quite dead?"

A few yards farther the path ran into the main drive.

This was bordered with trees, widening into a thicket.

At the point of intersection of the two paths were some further indistinct marks, and in another twenty yards or so they turned aside into the thicket. A large tree had grown there at some time and made a little clearing, in the midst of which a tarpaulin had been carefully spread and pegged down. The air was heavy with the smell of fungus and fallen leaves.

"Scene of the tragedy," said Parker briefly, rolling back the tarpaulin.

Lord Peter gazed down sadly. Muffled in an overcoat and a thick grey scarf, he looked, with his long, narrow face, like a melancholy adjutant stork. The writhing body of the fallen man had scraped up the dead leaves and left a depression in the sodden ground.

At one place the darker earth showed where a great pool of blood had soaked into it, and the yellow leaves of a Spanish poplar were rusted with no autumnal stain.

"That's where they found the handkerchief and revolver," said Parker. "I looked for finger-marks, but the rain and mud had messed everything up."

Wimsey took out his lens, lay down, and conducted a personal tour of the whole space slowly on his stomach, Parker moving mutely after him.

"He paced up and down for some time," said Lord Peter. "He wasn't smoking. He was turning something over in his mind, or waiting for somebody. What's this? Aha! Here's our No. 10 foot again, coming in through the trees on the farther side. No signs of a struggle. That's odd! Cathcart was shot close up, wasn't he?"

"Yes; it singed his shirtfront."

"Quite so. Why did he stand still to be shot at?"

"I imagine," said Parker, "that if he had an appointment with No. 10 Boots it was somebody he knew, who could get close to him without arousing suspicion."

"Then the interview was a friendly one-on Cathcart's side, anyhow. But the revolver's a difficulty. How did No. 10 get hold of Gerald's revolver?"

"The conservatory door was open," said Parker dubiously.

"Nobody knew about that except Gerald and Fleming," retorted Lord Peter. "Besides, do you mean to tell me that No. 10 walked in here, went to the study fetched the revolver, walked back here, and shot Cathcart? It seems a clumsy method. If he wanted to do any shooting, why didn't he come armed in the first place?"

"It seems more probable that Cathcart brought the revolver," said Parker.

"Then why no signs of a struggle?"

"Perhaps Cathcart shot himself," said Parker.

"Then why should No. 10 drag him into a conspicuous position and then run away?"

"Wait a minute," said Parker. "How's this? No. 10 has an appointment with Cathcart-to blackmail him, let's say. He somehow gets word of his intention to him between 9.45 and 10.15. That would account for the alteration in Cathcart's manner, and allow both Mr. Arbuthnot and the Duke to be telling the truth. Cathcart rushes violently out after his row with your brother. He comes down here to keep his appointment. He paces up and down waiting for No. 10. No. 10 arrives and parleys with Cathcart. Cathcart offers him money. No. 10 stands out for more. Cathcart says he really hasn't got it. No. 10 says in that case he blows the gaff. Cathcart retorts, 'In that case you can go to the devil. I'm going there myself.' Cathcart, who has previously got hold of the revolver, shoots himself. No. 10 is seized with remorse. He sees that Cathcart isn't quite dead. He picks him up and part drags, part carries him to the house. He is smaller than Cathcart and not very strong, and finds it a hard job. They have just got to the conservatory door when Cathcart has a final haemorrhage and gives up the ghost. No. 10 becomes aware that his position in somebody else's grounds, alone with a corpse at 3 A.M., wants explaining. He drops Cathcart-and bolts. Enter the Duke of Denver and falls over the body. Tableau."

"That's good," said Lord Peter; "that's very good. But when do you suppose it happened? Gerald found the body at 3 A.M.; the doctor was here at 4.30, and said Cathcart had been dead several hours. Very well. Now, how about that shot my sister heard at three o'clock?"

"Look here, old man," said Parker, "I don't want to appear rude to your sister. May I put it like this? I suggest that that shot at 3 A.M. was poachers."

"Poachers by all means," said Lord Peter. "Well, really, Parker, I think that hangs together. Let's adopt that explanation provisionally. The first thing to do is now to find No. 10, since he can bear witness that Cathcart committed suicide; and that, as far as my brother is concerned, is the only thing that matters a rap. But for the satisfaction of my own curiosity I'd like to know: What was No. 10 blackmailing Cathcart about? Who hid a suit-case in the conservatory? And what was Gerald doing in the garden at 3 A.M.?"

"Well," said Parker, "suppose we begin by tracing where No. 10 came from."

"Hi, hi!" cried Wimsey, as they returned to the trail. "Here's something-here's real treasure-trove, Parker!"

From amid the mud and the fallen leaves he retrieved a tiny, glittering object-a flash of white and green between his fingertips.

It was a little charm such as women hang upon a bracelet-a diminutive diamond cat with eyes of bright emerald.

Chapter III

Mud-stains and Bloodstains

"Other things are all very well in their way, but give me Blood.

We say, 'There it is! that's Blood!' It is an actual matter of fact. We point it out. It admits of no doubt… We must have Blood, you know."

– David Copperfield

"Hitherto," said Lord Peter, as they picked their painful way through the little wood on the trail of Gent's No. 10's, "I have always maintained that those obliging criminals who strew their tracks with little articles of personal adornment-here he is, on a squashed fungus-were an invention of detective fiction for the benefit of the author. I see that I have still something to learn about my job."

"Well, you haven't been at it very long, have you?" said Parker. "Besides, we don't know that the diamond cat is the criminal's. It may belong to a member of your own family, and have been lying here for days. It may belong to Mr. What's-his-name in the States, or to the last tenant but one, and have been lying here for years. This broken branch may be our friend-I think it is."

"I'll ask the family," said Lord Peter, "and we could find out in the village if anyone's ever inquired for a lost cat. They're pukka stones. It ain't the sort of thing one would drop without making a fuss about-I've lost him altogether."

"It's all right-I've got him. He's tripped over a root."

"Serve him glad," said Lord Peter viciously, straightening his back. "I say, I don't think the human frame is very thoughtfully constructed for this sleuthhound business. If one could go on all-fours, or had eyes in one's knees, it would be a lot more practical."

"There are many difficulties inherent in a teleological view of creation," said Parker placidly. "Ah! here we are at the park palings."

"And here's where he got over," said Lord Peter, pointing to a place where the chevaux de frise on the top was broken away. "Here's the dent where his heels came down, and here's where he fell forward on hands and knees. H'm! Give us a back, old man, would you? Thanks. An old break, I see. Mr. Montague-now-in-the-States should keep his palings in better order. No. 10 tore his coat on the spikes all the same; he left a fragment of Burberry behind him. What luck! Here's a deep, damp ditch on the other side, which I shall now proceed to fall into."

A slithering crash proclaimed that he had carried out his intention. Parker, thus callously abandoned, looked round, and, seeing that they were only a hundred yards or so from the gate, ran along and was let out, decorously, by Hardraw, the gamekeeper, who happened to be coming out of the lodge.

"By the way," said Parker to him, "did you ever find any signs of any poachers on Wednesday night after all?"

"Nay," said the man, "not so much as a dead rabbit. I reckon t'lady wor mistaken, an 'twore the [garbled] heard as killed t'Captain."

"Possibly," said Parker. "Do you know how long [garbled] have been broken off the palings over there?"

"A moonth or two, happen. They should 'a' bin put right, but the man's sick."

"The gate's locked at night, I suppose?"

"Aye."

"Anybody wishing to get in would have to waken you?"

"Aye, that he would."

"You didn't see any suspicious character loitering about outside these palings last Wednesday, I suppose?"

"Nay, sir, but my wife may ha' done. Hey, lass!"

Mrs. Hardraw, thus summoned, appeared at the door with a small boy clinging to her skirts.

"Wednesday?" said she. "Nay, I saw no loiterin' folks. I keep a look-out for tramps and such, as it be such a lonely place. Wednesday. Eh, now, John, that wad be t'day t'young mon called wi' t'motor-bike."

"Young man with a motor-bike?"

"I reckon 'twas. He said he'd had a puncture and asked for a bucket o' watter."

"Was that all the asking he did?"

"He asked what were t'name o' t'place and whose house it were."

"Did you tell him the Duke of Denver was living here?"

"Aye, sir, and he said he supposed a many gentlemen came up for t'shooting."

"Did he say where he was going?"

"He said he'd coom oop fra' Weirdale an' were makin' a trip into Coomberland."

"How long was he here?"

"Happen half an hour. An' then he tried to get his machine started, an' I see him hop-hoppitin' away towards King's Fenton."

She pointed away to the right, where Lord Peter might be seen gesticulating in the middle of the road.

"What sort of a man was he?"

Like most people, Mrs. Hardraw was poor at definition.

She thought he was youngish and tallish, neither dark nor fair, in such a long coat as motor-bicyclists use, with a belt round it.

"Was he a gentleman?"

Mrs. Hardraw hesitated, and Mr. Parker mentally classed the stranger as "Not quite quite."

"You didn't happen to notice the number of the bicycle?"

Mrs. Hardraw had not. "But it had a side-car," she added.

Lord Peter's gesticulations were becoming quite violent, and Mr. Parker hastened to rejoin him.

"Come on, gossiping old thing," said Lord Peter unreasonably.

"This is a beautiful ditch.

From such a ditch as this,

When the soft wind did gently kiss the trees

And they did make no noise, from such a ditch

Our friend, methinks, mounted the Troyan walls,

And wiped his soles upon the greasy mud.

Look at my trousers!"

"It's a bit of a climb from this side," said Parker.

"It is. He stood here in the ditch, and put one foot into this place where the paling's broken away and one hand on the top, and hauled himself up. No. 10 must have been a man of exceptional height, strength, and agility. I couldn't get my foot up, let alone reaching the top with my hand. I'm five foot nine. Could you?"

Parker was six foot, and could just touch the top of the wall with his hand.

"I could do it-on one of my best days," he said, "with an adequate object, or after adequate stimulant."

"Just so," said Lord Peter. "Hence we deduce № 10's exceptional height and strength."

"Yes," said Parker. "It's a bit unfortunate that we had to deduce his exceptional shortness and weakness just now, isn't it?"

"Oh!" said Peter. "Well-well, as you so rightly say, that is a bit unfortunate."

"Well, it may clear up presently. He didn't have a confederate to give him a back or a leg, I suppose?"

"Not unless the confederate was a being without feet or any visible means of support," said Lord Peter, indicating the solitary print of a pair of patched 10s. "By the way, how did he make straight in the dark for the place where the spikes were missing? Looks as though he belonged to the neighbourhood, or had reconnoitred previously."

"Arising out of that reply," said Parker, "I will now relate to you the entertaining 'gossip' I have had with Mrs. Hardraw."

"Humph!" said Wimsey at the end of it. "That's interesting. We'd better make inquiries at Riddlesdale and King's Fenton. Meanwhile we know where No. 10 came from; now where did he go after leaving Cathcart's body by the well?"

"The footsteps went into the preserve," said Parker. "I lost them there. There is a regular carpet of dead leaves and bracken."

"Well, but we needn't go through all that sleuth grind again," objected his friend. "The fellow went in, and, as he presumably is not there still, he came out again. He didn't come out through the gate or Hardraw would have seen him; he didn't come out the same way he went in or he would have left some traces. Therefore he came out elsewhere. Let's walk round the wall."

"Then we'll turn to the left," said Parker, "since [missing] the side of the preserve, and he apparently went through there."

"True O King! and as this isn't a church, there's no harm in going round it widdershins. Talking of church, there's Helen coming back. Get a move on, old thing."

They crossed the drive, passed the cottage and then, leaving the road, followed the paling across some open grass fields. It was not long before they found, what they sought. From one of the iron spikes above them dangled forlornly a strip of material. With Parker's assistance Wimsey scrambled up in a state of almost lyric excitement.

"Here we are," he cried. "The belt of a Burberry! No sort of precaution here. Here are the toe-prints of a fellow sprinting for his life. He tore off his Burberry! he made desperate leaps-one, two, three-at the palings. At the third leap he hooked it on to the spikes. He scrambled up, scoring long, scrabbling marks on the paling. He reached the top. Oh, here's a bloodstain run into this crack. He tore his hands. He dropped off. He wrenched the coat away, leaving the belt clinging-"

"I wish you'd drop off," grumbled Parker, "You're breaking my collarbone."

Lord Peter dropped off obediently, and stood there holding the belt between his fingers. His narrow grey eyes wandered restlessly over the field. Suddenly he seized Parker's arm and marched briskly in the direction of the wall on the farther side-a low erection of unmortared stone in the fashion of the country. Here he hunted along like a terrier, nose foremost, the tip of his tongue caught absurdly between his teeth, then jumped over, and, turning to Parker, said: "Did you ever read The Lay of the Last Minstrel?"

"I learnt a good deal of it at school," said Parker. "Why?"

"Because there was a goblin page-boy in it," said Lord Peter, "who was always yelling 'Found! Found! Found!' at the most unnecessary moments. I always thought him a terrible nuisance, but now I know how he felt. See here."

Close under the wall, and sunk heavily into the narrow and muddy lane which ran up here at right angles to the main road, was the track of a sidecar combination.

"Very nice too," said Mr. Parker approvingly.

"New Dunlop type on the front wheel. Old tyre on the back. Gaiter on the side-car tyre. Nothing could be better. Tracks come in from the road and go back to the road. Fellow shoved the machine in here in case anybody of an inquisitive turn of mind should pass on the road and make off with it, or take its number. Then he went round on shank's mare to the gap he'd spotted in the daytime and got over. After the Cathcart affair he took fright, bolted into the preserve, and took the shortest way to his bus, regardless. Well, now."