IV
What Joan Found in the Garden
Joan Cowper usually knew her own mind. And, in her view, knowing your own mind meant knowing when to stop as well as when to go on. She had made her position clear at the dinner, and Sir Vernon could no longer pretend, she said to herself, that her marriage with Prinsep was a foregone conclusion. Sir Vernon, indeed, had said nothing more about the matter when she took him to his room in the evening, and they had separated for the night apparently on the best of terms. But Joan had known that she must prepare for a stormy interview on the morrow; and, as she dressed in the morning, her thoughts were running on what she should say to Sir Vernon, in answer to the reproaches he was sure to address to her.
Just as she was ready for breakfast, her scared maid came to her door, and said that Morgan wished to speak to her for a moment. Joan looked at the girl’s face, and saw at once that something serious was amiss.
“Why, what’s the matter?” she said.
“I don’t know, miss; but there’s something wrong upstairs, and they’re sending for the police.”
Joan hurried to the room where Morgan was waiting for her. With the impeccable manner of the good manservant, and almost without a shade of feeling in his voice, Morgan told her what had happened—how he and Winter had found Prinsep lying on the floor of his study, dead.
“You are sure that he is dead,” she managed to ask. “Have you sent for a doctor?”
Morgan assured her that everything was being attended to, and said that he had come to her because someone would have to break the news to Sir Vernon. Would she do it?
Into Joan’s mind came the thought of the interview she had expected, and of the interview she was after all to have. No question now of her marrying John Prinsep—there was no longer any such person as John Prinsep to marry.
“I suppose I must do it,” she said.
Joan’s composure lasted just long enough for the door to close behind Morgan. Then she flung herself down on a couch, and let her feelings have their way. She sobbed half hysterically—not because, even at this tragic moment, she felt grief for John Prinsep, but simply because the sudden catastrophe was too much for her. Tragedy had swooped down in a moment on the house of Brooklyn, sweeping out of existence the crisis which had seemed so vital to her only a few minutes ago. On her was the sense of calamity, bewilderment, and helplessness in the face of death.
She had felt no call to ask Morgan questions. John Prinsep’s death—his murder—was a fact—a shattering event which must have time to sink into her consciousness before she could begin to inquire about the manner of its coming. She did not even ask herself how it had happened, or who had done this thing. As she lay sobbing, the one thought in her mind was that Prinsep was dead.
But soon that other thought, that call to action which had been presented to her at the very moment when Morgan told her the news, came back into her mind. She had given way; but she must pull herself together. Sir Vernon, old and weak as he was, must be told the news; and she must tell him. She must tell him at once, lest tidings should break on him suddenly from some other quarter. Already the police were probably in the house. With a powerful effort, Joan forced herself to be calm. Drying her eyes, she stood upright, and looked at herself in the glass. She would need all her power to break the news to the old man whom she loved—the old man who had loved John Prinsep far more than he loved her.
John Prinsep had been Sir Vernon’s favourite nephew—the man who was to succeed him—had indeed already succeeded him—in the management of the great enterprise he had built up. He liked George and Joan; but Prinsep had always had the first place in both his affection and his esteem. This death—this murder—Joan told herself, might be more than he could bear. It might kill him. And it fell to her, who only the night before had flouted his will by refusing to marry John Prinsep, to break to the old man the news of his favourite’s death.
Still, it had to be done, and it was best done quickly. Sir Vernon always lay in bed to breakfast, and it was to his bedroom that Joan went with her evil tidings. She did not try to break it to him gradually—she told him straight out what she knew, holding his hand as she spoke. He looked very old and feeble there in the great bed. But he took it more quietly than she had expected, unable apparently to take in at once the full implication of what she said. “Dead—murdered,” he repeated to himself again and again. He lay back in the bed and closed his eyes. Joan sat beside him for a while, and then stole away. His eyes opened and he watched her to the door; but he did not speak.
Joan’s first act on leaving Sir Vernon was to telephone to the family doctor—old Sir Jonas Dalrymple—and ask him to come round as soon as he could. Then she felt that she must have air: her head was swimming and she was near to fainting. So she went down the private staircase and out into the old garden which, now as ever, seemed so remote from the busy world outside. For some minutes she walked up and down the avenue of trees, along which were ranged the antique statues Lord Liskeard had brought home from Asia Minor. Then, in search of a place where she could sit and rest, she went towards the model temple which the same old scholar-diplomat had built to mark his enthusiasm for the world of antiquity.
But, as Joan came nearer the temple she saw, in the entrance, some indistinct dark object lying upon the steps. At first she could not be sure what it was; but, as she came close, she became sure that it was the body of a man, lying with the feet towards her in an unnatural attitude which must be that of either unconsciousness or death. Her impulse was to turn tail and run to the house for help; but, with a strong effort of will, she forced herself to go still nearer. It was a man, and the man, she felt sure, was dead. The face was turned away, lying downwards on the stone of the topmost step; and on the exposed back of the head was the mark of a savage blow which had crushed the skull almost like an eggshell. Already Joan was nearly certain who it was, and an intense feeling of sickness came over her as she forced herself to touch the body and to turn it over enough to expose the face. Then she let the thing drop back, and started back herself with a sharp cry. It was her cousin, George Brooklyn, manifestly dead and no less manifestly murdered, who lay there on the steps of the Grecian temple.
Filled as she was with horror at the second tragedy of the morning, Joan did not lose her presence of mind. She staggered, indeed, and had to cling for a minute to the nearest of the old statues—the Hercules whose points John Prinsep had showed off to his guests only the night before. The tears which she had been keeping back burst from her now, and the weeping did her good. She regained her composure and realised that her first duty was to summon help. Slowly and unsteadily she walked towards the house. At the door leading to the garden she met one of the policemen who was helping the sergeant in his examination of the house. She tried to speak, but she could only utter one word, “Come,” and lead the way back to the horror that lay there in the garden.
The policeman followed her. But as soon as they came in view of the temple and he saw what she had seen already, he ceased to advance. “One moment, miss,” he said, “I must fetch the sergeant,” and he started back to the house in search of his superior.
Joan stood stock still, only swaying a little, until the policeman came back with the sergeant. Then she watched the two men go up to the body, turn it over slightly to see the face, and then let it fall back.
“Begging pardon, miss,” said the sergeant, turning to her, “but maybe you know who this gentleman is?”
With a violent effort Joan managed to answer, “George—my cousin—Mr. George Brooklyn,” she said; and then, overcome by the strain, she fainted.
The sergeant was a chivalrous man, and he instantly left off his examination of the spot and came to Joan’s help. Propping up her head he fanned her rather awkwardly. As he did so, he shouted to the policeman. “Don’t stand there, you fool, looking like a stuck pig. Go and get some water for the lady.”
The constable set off at a run, lumbering heavily over the grass. “And tell the inspector what’s toward,” shouted the sergeant after him. It was this shout that the inspector heard, and that made him throw up the study window and receive at once the constable’s message.
By the time Inspector Blaikie reached the garden, the constable had returned with a glass of water, and Joan had recovered consciousness. She was sitting on the grass, her back propped against the pedestal of the statue, and the sergeant was trying to persuade her to go indoors. The inspector, after a hasty glance at the scene, added his entreaties; but Joan refused to go.
“No, I must see this through,” she said, as to herself. “I’m all right now,” she added, trying to smile at the police officer. “Let me alone, please.” After a time they left her to herself and pursued their investigation of the crime.
Not only were the fact and manner of death plain enough: the actual weapon with which the blow had been dealt was also clearly indicated. Between the body and the statue lay a heavy stone club, evidently a part of the group of statuary against which Joan was resting. It was the club of Hercules, taken from the hand of the stone figure which stood only a few feet away from the body. On the club were unmistakable recent bloodstains, and clotted in the blood were hairs which seemed to correspond closely with those of the dead man.
The blow had been one of immense violence. The stone club itself was so heavy that only a very strong man could have wielded it with effect; and it had evidently been brought down with great force on the back of George Brooklyn’s head by someone standing almost immediately behind him, but rather to the right hand. So much appeared even from a cursory inspection of the wound. It was also evident that the body did not lie where it had fallen. It had been dragged two or three yards along the ground into the temple entry, presumably in order that it might be well out of the way of casual notice. The dragging of it along the ground had left clear traces. A track had been swept clear of loose stones and rubble by the passage of the body, and two little ridges showed where the stones and dust had piled up on each side.
George Brooklyn was fully dressed in his evening clothes, just as he had appeared at dinner the night before. He had evidently come out into the garden without either hat or overcoat—or at least there was no sign of these on the scene of the crime. His body lay where it had been dragged—presumably by the murderer; and all the evidence seemed to show that death had been practically instantaneous. There was no sign of a struggle: the only visible mark of the event was the trail left where the dragging of the body had swept clear of dirt and pebbles the stone approach to the model temple.
All these observations, made by the sergeant within a minute or two of discovering the body, were confirmed by the inspector when he went over the ground. Footmarks, indeed, were there in plenty; but Joan explained that they had all been walking about the garden before dinner on the previous evening, and that nearly all of them had actually stood for some time just outside the porch of the temple. From the footprints it was most unlikely that any valuable evidence would be derived.
Had the situation been less grim Inspector Blaikie would have been inclined to laugh when he found that the man whose body lay in the garden was the very man for whose arrest he had just issued the order. His fear had been that George Brooklyn would slip away before there was time to effect an arrest. That fear was now most completely removed. If George Brooklyn had killed Prinsep upstairs, certainly fate had lost no time in exacting retribution.
The inspector’s immediate business, however, was to see what clues to this second and more mysterious murder might have been left. And it soon appeared to him that valuable evidence was forthcoming. First, on the stone club, his skilled examination plainly revealed a fine set of fingerprints, blurred in places, but still quite decipherable. Moreover, these prints occupied exactly the spaces most natural if the weapon had been used for a murderous assault. The inspector carefully wrapped up the club for forwarding at once to the Fingerprint Department at Scotland Yard.
But good fortune did not end there. Close to the statue of Hercules from which the club had been taken he found, trodden into the ground, a broken cigar-holder. It was a fine amber holder, broken cleanly across the middle. Where the cigar was to be inserted was a stout gold band, and on this band was an inscription, “V. B. from H. L.” Blaikie looked in vain for a cigar end. Probably the holder had dropped from a pocket and been trodden upon. Perhaps from the pocket of the murderer himself.
The inspector turned to Joan with his find.
“Have you ever seen this before?” he asked.
Joan gave a start of surprise. For a moment she stared at the cigar-holder without saying a word. Then she spoke slowly, and as if with an effort.
“Yes,” she said. “Uncle Harry—I mean Mr. Lucas—gave it to Sir Vernon; but Mr. Prinsep always used it. I saw him using it last night.”
“Miss Cowper,” said the inspector, “this may be very important. Are you quite sure that you saw Mr. Prinsep using this holder last night, and, if you are, at what time?”
“Yes, quite sure. He was smoking a cigar in it when he went up to his room.”
Joan had stayed in the garden while the inspector was examining the ground, because she seemed to have lost the power of doing anything else. If she went in she must go and tell Sir Vernon of this second tragedy, or else talk to him in such a way as deliberately to keep him in ignorance of it. The strain in either case would be, she felt, more than she could bear. It was better even to stay near this horrible corpse, and to watch the police making their investigations.
Meanwhile, Dr. Manton, and with him a police surgeon, had come into the garden and were making an examination of the body. When they had done, two stout constables placed it on a stretcher and carried it into the house. Joan followed almost mechanically, leaving the inspector still in the garden.
As she entered the house Winter told her that Mrs. George Brooklyn and Mrs. Woodman were upstairs with Miss Woodman, and that Carter Woodman had telephoned to say that he was coming round at once. He had just heard, at his office, the news of Prinsep’s murder; but of course he would know nothing yet of George’s fate. And then it occurred to Joan that Mrs. George, who was upstairs, had probably heard nothing as yet of her husband’s death. Was she to break the news again—this time to a wife whose love for her husband had been so great as to become a family proverb? “As much in love as Marian.” How often they had laughed as they said it; and now it came home suddenly to Joan what it meant. Still, she must go upstairs and see them—tell them, if need be.
She found that they knew already. They had seen from a window the excitement in the garden, and Mary Woodman had run down to find out what the trouble was. So Mary had had to tell Mrs. George, and there they were sitting in silence, waiting for news that could be no worse, and could be no better.
Joan shortly told them what she knew. Marian listened in silence, sitting still and staring at nothing with a fixed gaze. She did not weep: she was as if she had been turned to stone. Joan thought that she looked more beautiful now than she had ever looked on the stage, when she set a whole theatre crying for the sorrows of some queen of long ago. She longed to offer comfort, but she dared do nothing. Complete silence fell on the room.
Meanwhile, below, Carter Woodman had arrived. He heard from Winter at the door the news of the second tragedy of the morning. At first he seemed half incredulous; but he was soon convinced that there was no room for doubt. With a sentence expressing his horror, he hurried through into the garden in search of the inspector, whom he found still seeking for further traces of the crime.
Carter Woodman took the position by storm. His tall, athletic presence dominated the group of men gathered round the statue. He insisted that he must hear the whole story, demanded to know what clues the police had found, and so bullied the inspector and everybody else as to get himself at once very heartily disliked. Before he had half done the police were quite in a mood to convict him of the murder, if they could find a shred of evidence.
But they had to respect his energy; for it was he who pointed out to them something which they had overlooked. It was a scrap of paper lying on the floor of the temple, seemingly blown into a corner, just beyond where the body had lain. A leaf clearly from a memorandum book, and, from the cleanness and the state of the torn edge, apparently not long torn out. On it was written, in a hand which Woodman at once identified as Prinsep’s, “Come to me in the garden. I will wait in the temple—J. P.” There was no address or direction. But it seemed to prove that Prinsep, who lay dead upstairs, had arranged with someone a meeting in the garden, where now George Brooklyn’s body had been found.
It was Woodman, too, who made a valuable suggestion. “Look here, inspector,” he said. “Most of this part of the garden, though it is hidden from the house by the trees, can be seen from the windows at the back of the theatre. Whoever was here with poor old George last night may quite possibly have been seen by someone from there. There are nearly always people about till late.”
The inspector at once pointed out that the place where they were standing, and the temple itself, were completely hidden from the theatre by a thick belt of trees and shrubs. But Woodman insisted that the chance was worth trying. George or his assailant might have been in another part of the garden some of the time.
The inspector and Woodman accordingly went across to the theatre, to which the news had already spread. And there they quickly found what they wanted. A caretaker, who lived in a set of ground-floor rooms at the back of the house had distinctly seen John Prinsep walking up and down the garden shortly after eleven o’clock, or it might have been a quarter past, on the previous night. He had been quite alone, and the man had last seen him walking towards the shrubbery and the temple. Asked if he was quite certain that the person he saw was Prinsep he said there could be no mistaking Mr. Prinsep. He had on his claret-coloured overcoat and slouch hat, and no one could help recognising his walk. He had a pronounced limp, and walked with a curious sideways action. “It was Mr. Prinsep all right,” the caretaker concluded. “I should know him out of a thousand.”
This would have satisfied some men; and it appeared to satisfy Woodman. But the inspector held that it was desirable to look for corroborative evidence. No one else in the building seemed to have seen anyone in the garden; but most of the staff had not yet arrived. The inspector made arrangements for each to be interrogated on arrival, and he and Woodman then went back into the garden through the private door opening on the covered way communicating between the theatre and the house. They continued their search; but no further clues were to be found.