The Ashiel mystery: A Detective Story by Mrs. Charles Bryce (red seas under red skies TXT) 📗

extra nail or two on the soles. There was no doubt that Sir David's boots had made those impressions, but to my mind there was equally no doubt that Sir David had not been in them when they made them. For the track which was so plainly distinguishable on the soft mould of the flower-bed had certain peculiarities which I could hardly overlook.

"There was first a row of footmarks leading from the lawn to the middle of the bed; then more marks as if the wearer of the boots had moved from one position to another hard by; and finally, a track leading back again to the mossy lawn at the side. Now all this was well enough till it came to the last row of footsteps, those which led off the bed, and which had presumably been taken after the fatal shot was fired. But was it conceivable that a man who had that moment committed a cold-blooded murder should leave the scene of his crime with the same slow, deliberate footsteps with which he had approached it? Surely not.

"And yet this is what the wearer of the boots had done. The imprints, as they advanced towards the lawn, were deep and well defined from toe to heel. Not only that, but they were, if anything, closer together than those which preceded them. Now a man, running, leaves a deeper impression of his toe than he does of his heel, and his steps are much farther apart in proportion to his increase in speed. I, myself, ran from the middle of the bed, to the lawn, alongside of the footmarks of the soi-disant murderer, and though I am a short man, while Sir David's legs are reported long, I left only two footprints to his five. To me it was as certain as if I had seen it happen that the wearer of the boots trampled his way off the rose-bed as slowly as he had trampled on. Those footprints had been made by some one who was determined they should be seen, not by some one whose only thought was to get away from the place; not, in short, by a man who had that moment fired a murderous shot through the darkness. The tracks had undoubtedly been made as a blind and with the intention of diverting suspicion to the wrong man probably after the deed itself was done.

"I was satisfied, then, that the shot had not been fired from this particular part of the rose-bed, and I proceeded to search for other footprints farther down the bed. I did not feel much hope of being successful, since, if our man had had the forethought to leave so many traces of some one else's presence, it was unlikely he would have neglected to ensure that his own should be absent. And as I expected, I found none.

"But at the end of the garden, where it is bounded by the holly hedge, I came across something which puzzled me. There were two narrow depressions on the flower-bed, about an inch wide by less than a foot long. They were parallel to each other, and at right angles to the hedge, and separated by a distance of six or seven feet. Near one, which was almost in the middle of the bed, was another mark which I could not understand. It was only a few inches long and, in shape, a narrow oval. I could not at first imagine what any of them represented, and it was only quite suddenly, as I was giving it up and going away, that the truth flashed across my mind. I had been looking regretfully at the track I myself had left by the side of the hedge on my way to and from the middle of the bed.

"'What I want,' I said to myself, 'is one of those planks raised off the ground by two little supports, one at each end, that gardeners use to avoid stepping on the beds when they are going through the process of bedding out,' And even as I said it, I realized that the same idea had occurred to some one else, and that the marks I had been examining might have been made by just such a contrivance as the one I was thinking of. A short search showed me the plank itself, kept in a tool-house conveniently near the spot, and, with a rake taken from the same place, I seized the opportunity of raking out my own footmarks from the rose-bed.

"And now who could this be who had so carefully manufactured a false scent, and so cleverly avoided being himself suspected? My previous theory, that some envoy of the Nihilists had been lurking in the neighbourhood, seemed not to meet the new conditions. For how could a mere stranger have gained possession of the misleading boots, or how returned them to their proper place? And how, for that matter, could a stranger have obtained the use of Sir David's rifle, if his rifle had indeed been used?

"That brought me to consider again whether after all there was any proof that his rifle had been used by anyone. Supposing, as I saw no reason to doubt, he spoke the truth when he said that Miss Byrne had misunderstood him and that he had not cleaned the weapon since coming in from stalking, was I driven back on the theory that some one possessed a duplicate key to the case where the guns were kept? Not in the least. The shot might have been fired from a rifle that had never, at any time, been within the walls of the castle. Certainly, the bullet fitted Sir David's Mannlicher rifle, but that, as young Lord Ashiel said himself, was equally true of his own rifle, or probably of a dozen others in the neighbouring forests, since a sporting Mannlicher is a weapon in common use in the Highlands.

"The shot, then, might well have been fired by my hypothetical Russian as far as the rifle was concerned; but he would have found it difficult to borrow Sir David's boots, and it seemed unlikely that any stranger would not only have dared to do so, but afterwards have had the audacity to return them. No, on the whole the footmarks seemed to clear the character of the Russian nation from any reasonable suspicion of being directly concerned in the crime.

"And yet, in spite of reason, I could not help feeling that the Society of the Friends of Man must be at the bottom of the whole thing in some way I had not yet fathomed. I made every inquiry as to whether any foreigner had visited the castle or been seen in the neighbourhood, but the only strangers among the visitors had been Miss Julia Romaninov and Miss Juliet Byrne's French maid, both of whose alibis appeared so far unimpeachable. I had it on Lady Ruth's authority that Miss Romaninov had been in the drawing-room with the other ladies at the time of the murder, and all the servants were at supper in the servants' hall. Otherwise I should have been inclined to look on Julia Romaninov with a suspicious eye, as being the only Russian I knew to be on the spot. The last word the dying man had been able to pronounce, too, was, according to Miss Byrne, 'steps' which might very well have been intended for steppes, and have some connection with the enemies he dreaded.

"With these considerations running in my mind, I made my way to the gun-room, not indeed with much expectation of its having anything to tell me, but as part of the day's work of inspection, which must not be shirked. I took down young Ashiel's rifle to examine. He had told me it was of the same description as his cousin's, and I was not very familiar with the make. It was owing to my wish to see for myself with what kind of weapon the deed had been done that a very important clue fell into my hands.

"As I put the rifle down on the bare deal table which forms the principal piece of furniture in the gun-room, I saw a grain of something dark, which looked like earth, fall off the butt end on to the boards beneath. I picked up the rifle, and looked closely at the butt; it was criss-crossed with small cuts, as they sometimes are, with the idea of preventing them from slipping, and in the cuts some dust, or earth, seemed, as I expected, to be adhering. I knocked the rifle upon the table, and a little shower fell from it. Except for the first grain, it might have been nothing but the ordinary dust of disuse, but I could not help thinking it was of a darker hue than the accumulations of years generally take upon themselves, and, further, I knew that the rifle had lately been used for stalking. It was, moreover, specklessly clean in every other part. I felt certain it had been leant upon the ground at no distant date; and I remembered the mark I had not been able to account for at the foot of the rose-bush, near the place where the plank had been used and, as I was persuaded, the cowardly shot actually fired. If a gun had been leant up against the large standard rose that grew there, it would have left just such a mark upon the soft ground.

"All this, of course, was a mere surmise, and rather wild at that, but the deer forests of Scotland are not muddy, whatever else they may be, and I felt an unreasoning conviction that the rifle had not accumulated dust while engaged upon its legitimate business on the mountain tops. The peaty moorland soil on which the castle stood would hardly be the best thing in the world for rose-trees, I imagined, and it seemed not too much to hope that some other kind of earth might be artificially mingled with it. I carefully collected the dust in a pill-box, and promised myself to lose no time in obtaining the opinion of an expert analyst, as to whether or no some trace of patent fertilizer, or other chemical, could not be traced in it.

"It was now for the first time that suspicion of young Lord Ashiel began to oust my theory of the Nihilist society's responsibility for the murder. He had, as I remembered, struck me as taking his cousin's guilt for granted with somewhat unnecessary alacrity. His rifle, I already believed, perhaps in my turn with needless alacrity, had fired the fatal bullet, and it seemed perfectly possible that it was his finger that pressed upon the trigger. He was, I knew, in the billiard-room, and alone, both before and after the murder was committed. It would have been quite easy for him to fetch his rifle, place the gardener's plank in position, fire his shot and return to the house, provided Miss Byrne did not rush immediately from the room. He knew her to be a brave girl and not likely to fly without making some attempt at offering assistance. But, if she had rushed from the spot and met the murderer outside the library door, it would be simple enough to convey the impression that he had heard the shot, and that he was either dashing to their help, or making for the garden in the attempt to catch the villain red handed. The rifle was the only thing likely to provoke an awkward question, but he could have dropped it in the dark and returned for it afterwards without much fear of detection. As it happened, he thought it safer to risk carrying it indoors, and hid it under the billiard-room sofa till he had a chance to clean it and take it to the gun-room, as we now know.

"You can imagine the scene: Lord Ashiel falling forward upon the writing-table under the light of the lamp; the scoundrel leaping from his post upon the plank, but not so quickly that he did not see the girl throw herself on her knees at the side of the fallen man. I can fancy the frenzied haste with which McConachan thrust the plank into the hedge and ran like a deer towards the door, which he had no doubt left open. I imagine him, then, tiptoeing to the door of the library and bending to listen, every nerve astretch. What he heard, no doubt reassured him; it may have been the voice of the girl calling upon her father, or it may have been the thud of her body falling upon the floor when she fainted. Perhaps, even, he may have stayed outside long enough to see her sink to the ground. Then