The Shrieking Pit by Arthur J. Rees (new ebook reader TXT) 📗

if she slipped. He stopped and watched her climb to the top of the wall, and stand there, like a creature of the sea, with the spray leaping hungrily at her slight figure. He saw her take something from the bosom of her dress and cast it into the wild waste of seething waters in front of her. Having done this she turned to descend the breakwater. Colwyn had barely time to leave the path, and take refuge in the shadow of the wall, before she reached the path again and set out to retrace her steps across the lonely marshes. CHAPTER XI

Colwyn waited on the marshes until the coming of the dawn revealed the breakwater and the sea crashing against it. A brief scrutiny of the white waste of waters, raging endlessly against the barrier, convinced him of the futility of attempting to discover what the innkeeper's daughter had thrown from the breakwater wall an hour before. The sea would retain her secret.

The sea mist hung heavily over the marshes as Colwyn cautiously picked his way back along the slippery canal path. Sooner than he expected, the inn appeared from the grey mist like a sheeted ghost. Colwyn stood for a few moments regarding the place attentively. There was something weird and sinister about this lonely inn on the edge of the marshes. Strange things must have happened there in the past, but the lawless secrets of a bygone generation of smugglers had been safely kept by the old inn. The cold morning light imparted the semblance of a leer to the circular windows high up in the white wall, as though they defied the world to discover the secret of the death of Roger Glenthorpe.

There was no sign of life about the inn as Colwyn approached it. The back door yielded to his pull on the latch, and he gained his room unobserved; apparently all the inmates were still wrapped in slumber. Colwyn spent half an hour or so in making some sort of a toilet. He had brought a suit-case with him in the car, so he changed his wet clothes, shaved himself in[Pg 119] cold water, washed, and brushed his hair. He looked at his watch, and found that it was after six o'clock. He wondered if the girl Peggy was sleeping after her night's adventure.

A swishing noise, somewhere in the lower regions, broke the profound stillness of the house. Somebody was washing the floor, somewhere. Colwyn opened his door and went downstairs. Ann, the stout servant, was washing the passage. She was on her hands and knees, with her back towards the staircase, swabbing vigorously, and did not see the detective descending the stairs.

"Good morning, Ann," said Colwyn, pleasantly.

She turned her head quickly, with a start, and Colwyn could have sworn that the quick glance she gave him was one of fear. But she merely said, "Good morning, sir," and went on with her work, while the detective stood looking at her. She finished the passage in a few minutes and got awkwardly to her feet, wiping her red hands on her coarse apron.

"You and I are the only early risers in the house, it seems, Ann," said Colwyn, still regarding her attentively.

"If you please, sir, Charles is up, and gone out to the canal to see if there are any fish for breakfast on the master's night lines."

"Fresh fish for breakfast! Well, that's a very good thing," replied the detective, reflecting it was just as well that he had got in before Charles went out. "What time does Mr. Benson come down?"

"About half-past seven, sir, as a general rule, but sometimes he has his breakfast in bed."

"That's not a bad idea at times, Ann. But I see you are impatient to get on with your work. Would you[Pg 120] mind if I went into the kitchen and talked to you while you are preparing breakfast?"

Again there was a gleam of fear in the woman's eyes as she looked quickly at the detective, but her voice was self-possessed as she replied:

"Very well, sir," and turned down the passage which led to the kitchen.

"What time was it when you turned off the gas the night before last?" asked Colwyn, when the kitchen was reached. "You told us yesterday that it was about half-past ten, but you did not seem very sure of the exact time. Can you not fix it accurately? Try and think."

The look the woman gave Colwyn this time was undoubtedly one of relief.

"Well, sir," she said, "I usually turn off the gas at ten o'clock, but, to tell you the truth, I was a little bit late that night."

"A little bit late, eh? That means you forgot all about it."

"I did forget about it, and that's the truth. The master told me not to turn off the meter until the gentlemen in the parlour upstairs had gone to bed. Charles told me when he came down from the upstairs parlour with the last of the dinner things that the gentlemen were still sitting in front of the fire talking, but some time after Charles had come down and gone to bed I heard them moving about upstairs, as though they were going to their rooms."

"What time was that?" asked the detective.

"Just half-past ten. I happened to glance at the kitchen clock at the time. Charles, who had been told that he wouldn't be wanted upstairs again, had gone to bed quite half an hour before, but I didn't go until I had folded some clothes which I had airing in front[Pg 121] of the kitchen fire. When I did get to bed, and was just falling off to sleep, I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten to turn off the gas at the meter. I got out of bed again, lit my candle, and went up the passage to the meter, which is just under the foot of the stairs, turned off the gas, and went back to bed."

"Did you notice the time then?"

"The kitchen clock was just chiming eleven as I got back to my bed."

"You are sure it was not twelve?"

"Quite sure, sir."

"Did you hear any sound upstairs?"

"No, sir. It was as quiet as the dead."

"Was it raining at that time?"

"It started to rain heavens hard just as I got back to bed, but before that the wind was moaning round the house, as it do moan in these parts, and I knew we was in for a storm. I was glad enough to get back to my warm bed."

"You might have seen something, if you had been a little later. The staircase is the only way the body could have been brought down from there." The detective pointed to the room above where the dead man lay.

The woman trembled violently.

"It's God's mercy I didn't see something," she said, and her voice fell to a husky whisper. "I should 'a' died wi' fright if I had seen it being brought downstairs. All day long I've been thanking God I didn't see anything."

"Do nobody else but you and Charles sleep downstairs?"

"Nobody, sir. I sleep in a small room off the kitchen, but Charles sleeps in one of the rooms in the passage[Pg 122] which leads off the kitchen, the first room, not far from my own. But that'd been no help to me if I'd seen anything. I might have screamed the house down before Charles would have heard me, he being stone deaf."

"Quite true, Ann. And now is that all you have to tell me about the gas?"

The woman seemed to have some difficulty in replying, but finally she stammered out in an embarrassed voice, plucking at her apron the while:

"Yes, sir."

"Look at me, Ann, and tell me the truth. Come now, it will be better for everybody."

The countrywoman looked at the detective with whitening face, and there was something in his penetrating gaze that kept her frightened eyes fixed on his.

"Please, sir——"

"Yes, Ann, go on," prompted the detective encouragingly.

But the woman didn't go on; there crept into her face instead an obstinate look, her mouth closed tightly, and her hands ceased twitching.

"I've told you everything, sir," she said quietly.

"You've not told me you found the meter turned on when you got up next morning," replied the detective sternly.

The woman's fat face turned haggard with anxiety, and then she began to cry softly with her apron to her eyes.

"Why did you not tell us this, Ann?"

"If you please, sir, I thought that the master mightn't like it if he knew. He's very particular about having the gas turned off at night, and he might have thought I had forgotten it."

Colwyn gave her another searching look.[Pg 123]

"Even if that were true, Ann, you have no right to keep back anything that may tend to shield the guilty, or injure the innocent."

"I didn't think it mattered, sir."

"You still say that you heard nothing after you went to bed?"

"No, sir. I fell asleep as soon as I got into bed."

"So you said before, but you did not tell us the whole truth yesterday, you know, and I do not know whether to believe you