Settling Scores Read online

  “No, I’ve not been there this last day or two,” the squat little fisherman was observing. “Found a better pitch.”

  “Last time I met you,” replied the sandy-haired fellow almost with a note of complaint in his voice, “you told me you were going to live and die there. Said you’d never known such a pool for fish.”

  “So I did. And maybe I will go back some time. But I tried Barsham Pond the day after I saw you, and I struck lucky. Been right among ’em ever since.”

  “Good size?”

  “Not bad.”

  “Not bad, eh? Now, over at the other pond, there’s a sixteen-pounder waiting to be caught. Some one told me it was seen jumping about like a young lamb yesterday. You go and get that fish today—or some one else will.”

  “No, not today,” replied the angler shaking his head. “My bait’s laid. Tomorrow, p’r’aps.”

  He rose, collected his rod and tackle, nodded round the parlour, and departed.

  Conversation departed with him. For a couple of minutes there was silence, broken only by the breathing of the innkeeper as he polished his glasses. Then the sandy-haired man rose, tossed a coin on the counter, and walked to the door.

  “Are you going off to catch that sixteen-pounder?” asked the detective.

  The sandy-haired man stopped abruptly.

  “Me?” he exclaimed, and laughed. “I’ve got something better to do. Mug’s game!” He opened the door, then suddenly paused to add, “P’r’aps you fish?”

  “No,” answered Detective Crook. “I’ve also got something better to do.”

  “Then it’s no good my directing you to the pond,” returned the other. “Good morning.” And he swung out of the inn.

  “Sixteen pounds is a pretty good size,” commented Crook to the innkeeper.

  “Sixteen pounds!” scoffed the innkeeper. “More likely sixteen ounces! Bless me soul, these lakes is magnifying glasses. Big enough fish below ’em—but when they come out, more like peanuts!”

  “What particular lake were they talking of?”

  “That was Lydd Water. That’s it. Lydd Water. That fishing chap uster go there hevery day, but now ’e’s gone over to Barsham. Sixteen-pounder! Oh, yes. Very likely!”

  It was nearly three o’clock when the detective reached the Crofts, a large turreted house standing in spacious grounds. He was shown at once into a sitting room, where a tall girl rose to greet him. She was a pretty girl, but her cheeks were unnaturally pale this afternoon, and there were dark shadows under her eyes.

  “Oh, I’m so glad you’ve come!” she exclaimed immediately. “I was beginning to wonder. I expected you earlier.”

  “I came as soon as I could after receiving your wire, Miss Holt,” replied the detective gravely. “But I was delayed. What is your trouble?”

  She hesitated for a moment, then suddenly took a piece of paper from the bosom of her dress and held it out.

  “That will explain, I think,” she murmured.

  Crook took the small sheet. It bore a few scribbled words, and the detective’s eyes recognised at once the agitation in the handwriting. The words themselves explained the agitation.

  Life has become too great a burden to me. Others can never understand the agony in a man’s own soul, and I will not try to explain the agony in mine. But I am finished. Good-by. Try and forget me, and forgive me. You have done all you could—there is no bitterness against you in my heart. I alone am to blame.

  P. H.

  The detective read the note through slowly, read it again, and then laid it down, writing upward, on the table. With his eyes still upon the note, he asked:

  “Well? And then?”

  “It was written two days ago,” replied Miss Holt. “My brother has not been seen since. Oh, you can’t think of the agony I have been through! My father is very ill, too—dangerously ill—and we haven’t been able to keep the news from him.”

  “Naturally not. The note, I suppose, was addressed to him?”

  “No, to me. That is,” she corrected herself, “it was left in my room.”

  “I see,” murmured Crook, and reread the note. Then he asked, “Do you know the nature of the trouble that was pressing on your brother’s mind?”

  “No. I can’t think of anything. There was only father’s illness.”

  Crook looked thoughtful. “He may have had some trouble you knew nothing about,” he said. “Young men often conceal their difficulties—as long as they can. But, tell me, Miss Holt; he speaks of something you have done for him. What does that refer to?”

  She shook her head despairingly. “I have done nothing. I don’t know what he means.”

  “Do you know why he should harbour any bitterness against you?” pursued the detective. Again she shook her head. “Well, a man on the verge of suicide—assuming this to have been his mood when he wrote that note—does not always act rationally. Delusions step in, distortions, and exaggerations of small incidents or feelings. Perhaps your brother had debts?”

  “I have wondered about that,” responded Miss Holt. “I can’t trace any though. Two years ago he got into a fearful tangle, and, when father helped him out, he promised he would never borrow a penny again. Before that, father had been continually getting him out of scrapes.”

  “And you think he has kept that promise?”

  “Until these last two days, I’ve always thought so. Father increased his allowance, you see, and we have no difficulties of that sort. Then the property is entailed, so Peter’s future was assured.”

  II

  Crook considered her words for a moment. “Failing your brother, the property passes to you, of course?”

  “No. To a cousin.”

  “How is that?” asked the detective, raising his eyebrows.

  “Though I am called Miss Holt, I am only Mr. Holt’s adopted daughter,” she explained.

  “I see. Now, please forgive me if my next question gives you pain, but I must ask it, frankly. Were you engaged to Peter Holt?”

  “Oh, no!” she answered flushing slightly. “Mr. Holt—Peter’s father—wanted it, because he said he wished me always to live here, he has been wonderfully good to me. But Peter and I never loved each other in that way. I am engaged to Peter’s cousin. No, not the one I mentioned before,” she added quickly. “A younger brother.”

  “I see,” responded Crook with an odd expression. “The position is quite clear. Your fiancé is third on the list—”

  He stopped speaking suddenly. Miss Holt looked at him, and saw that his eyes were fixed on a photograph on the mantelpiece.

  “That is Peter’s cousin—Arthur Cleyne,” she said.

  “Your fiancé?”

  “No, the elder cousin. My fiancé’s name is Edward—his picture is on the other end of the mantelpiece.”

  The detective transferred his gaze from one picture to the other, but it was noticeable that his interest in the picture of Edward Cleyne was considerably less than his interest in the picture of Arthur Cleyne.

  He was about to put another question when the door suddenly burst open and a maid ran in.

  “Oh, miss—please, come quick!” she cried. “Mr. Holt—he’s—he’s—”

  With a cry, Miss Holt jumped up from her chair, and hastened out of the room. Five minutes later the detective learned that old Mr. Holt, owner of the Crofts, was dead.

  It was a butler who gave the detective this information and who brought Miss Holt’s excuses. Would the detective kindly call back a little later? Miss Holt was not in a condition at the moment to continue the interview, but perhaps, at six—?

  “Please assure Miss Holt that I understand,” interposed Detective Crook, “and give her my sincere sympathy. I will not call again this evening, but will be here tomorrow at mid-day. Tell her I am proceeding with my investigations—she has given me enough information to go on with—and that, if she wants me, I shall spend the night at the Boar’s Head.”

  The detective did not waste any time. Leaving the Crof
ts, he returned briskly to the Boar’s Head, engaged a room, and then proceeded to the railway station. Half an hour later he was walking into the police station of the neighbouring town of Tarrant.

  The local inspector, a genial man, advanced smiling.

  “So they’ve got you on this Holt job, too, eh?” he exclaimed. “Well, the more the better. Bit of a puzzle, isn’t it?”

  “What’s your theory?” asked Crook.

  “Suicide,” responded the inspector. “That’s clear enough. But the puzzle is—where’s the body? Vanished. We’ve not found that yet.”

  “Nor have you found the motive for the suicide,” said Crook.

  “Common enough motive, I should say,” observed the inspector. “A woman—or debts. Peter Holt used to be a bit of a spendthrift from all accounts.”

  “But that was a couple of years ago.”

  “Was it?” The inspector shrugged his shoulders. “I see you’ve been supplied with dates. Anyway, I happen to have found out that a certain money-lender of this town was seen in the locality of the Crofts four days ago.”

  “That’s interesting,” admitted Crook. “Was he seen actually entering or leaving the Crofts?”

  “I don’t believe so. But there’ll be time enough to go into that when we find the body. Meanwhile—well, one can put two and two together.”

  “But Miss Holt told me Peter Holt had no debts?”

  “She couldn’t know that, sir!” declared the inspector. “Love affairs and debts are two things we don’t brag about.”

  “Quite true,” nodded the detective. “Who is this money-lender you speak of?”

  “Hubert Bowersby, 69 High Street, lends sums from ten pounds to ten thousand pounds, and will be delighted to see you any time.” The inspector laughed, then grew serious again. “No, there won’t be much trouble about the motive, I’m thinking, when the time comes to dig into it. And, anyway, there’s the poor chap’s letter.”

  “Ah,” murmured Detective Crook and produced it. “You’ve no doubt, I suppose, as to its genuineness?”

  “Well, scarcely!” exclaimed the inspector. “You’re not suggesting it’s a forgery, are you?”

  “No, it’s not a forgery,” answered Crook. “The unfortunate man wrote it.”

  “And meant to do away with himself afterward?” pursued the inspector.

  “Without a doubt Peter Holt contemplated suicide when he wrote that note. Have you a handwriting expert on the premises?”

  III

  Twenty minutes later Detective Crook left the police station and called upon Mr. Hubert Bowersby, of 69 High Street, Tarrant. Mr. Bowersby was out, frightening a creditor who had borrowed ten pounds from him a few weeks ago and was now unable to pay back fifteen, but the detective waited until the money-lender returned, asked him two questions, and then returned to the station.

  Back at the Blue Boar, he ordered a light dinner and found the angler whom he had encountered earlier in the day seated at the next table.

  “Good evening,” said Crook. “Well, did you have any luck?”

  “No,” grunted the angler. “Not a single bite!”

  “You ought to have taken your friend’s advice and gone to Lydd Water.”

  “Hello! What do you know of Lydd Water?” exclaimed the angler in surprise.

  “Nothing,” answered the detective, “excepting that a sixteen-pound fish is supposed to be waiting for you there. Is your friend an authority on fishing?”

  “Don’t know,” said the angler. “Don’t know anything about him. He’s dropped in here once or twice and I happened to mention I’d been fishing in Lydd Water. Now he’s trying to lure me back to it again.”

  “Why not take his advice?”

  “What! Do you think I’ll find that sixteen-pounder?”

  “You may find something even bigger.”

  The angler looked at the detective. Then he broke into a smile.

  “Say, I’m a fisherman, not a big game hunter,” he laughed. “There’s no hippopotamuses around here! What’s it all about, anyway?”

  “If you care to stroll to Lydd Water after dinner, you may find out,” responded Crook inscrutably. “I’ll wander with you, if you like. You can show me the way.”

  “Right!” cried the angler. “And if we find that sixteen-pounder jumping after evening gnats, I’ll bring my tackle along tomorrow and have him out!”

  The sun was low upon the horizon when, each with a pipe between his lips, the detective and the angler began their evening walk to the lonely lake in the middle of the woods, where a sixteen-pound fish was reported to be enjoying too much freedom.

  The long shadows of the trees pointed with eerie significance toward the water. During the first part of the journey, the angler was talkative, but toward the end he fell into a silence, reflecting his companion’s quieter mood and only making one remark on the final stretch of their walk.

  “Say, what’s your interest in Lydd Water?” he demanded curiously.

  “I’ll answer that later,” replied Crook, “if Lydd Water doesn’t answer for me.”

  An hour afterward, the innkeeper watched them return, and, commenting on their expressions, observed to his wife that if he couldn’t enjoy an evening stroll more than that, he’d stay at home with the newspaper, so he would.

  The angler went thoughtfully to bed, but Detective Crook’s activities for the day were not quite over. He walked again to the station and made use of the station telephone. Then he returned to the Boar’s Head and, seated in the parlour, wrote a letter to Miss Holt.

  It repeated the message which he had given to the butler, told her that he had made some progress in his investigations, and asked her to arrange a meeting at twelve o’clock on the morrow at which the late Mr. Holt’s will should be read.

  He emphasised this request, saying that while he realised the difficulties of summoning the meeting at such short notice, it was urgent. “Let all the interested parties you can gather together be present,” he wrote. “Some will doubtless be in the neighbourhood, and can be summoned by wire. By complying with this request, you will help me to accomplish the task you have set me, and may also avoid many weeks of worry, uncertainty, and delay.”

  He delivered the note personally, leaving it at the door of the Crofts. Then he returned to the inn and went to bed.

  Next morning, shortly before noon, he was back again at the Crofts, and when he was ushered into the sitting room where on the previous day he had had his interrupted interview with Miss Holt, he found several people already assembled there. This gratified him, and his grave smile, as Miss Holt approached him, reflected his appreciation of the manner in which she had complied with his request.

  “I have done my best, you see,” said Miss Holt quietly. “Over there is our solicitor, Mr. Barley—he has the will in his hand. That lady by his side is Miss Ellertree, Mr. Holt’s sister, and next to her is another sister, Mrs. Grahame.”

  “And who is that on Mr. Barley’s other side?” asked the detective, indicating a sandy-haired young man with light blue eyes. “Is he the cousin who comes into the property?”

  Miss Holt nodded. “Yes. Arthur Cleyne. And that’s Edward Cleyne—my fiancé—standing by the window.”

  “Thank you,” said Detective Crook. “Then everything is ready—as far as I am concerned.”

  She threw him a curious look; then, after a moment’s hesitation, went across to the solicitor and said a few words to him. The solicitor nodded, cleared his throat and gained immediate attention.

  “These proceedings are merely preliminary and informal,” began the solicitor. “In fact, it was only at Miss Holt’s urgent wish to have the will read today that we are here so closely on the heels of—ah—this very sad event. I would like, if I may, to express my very great sympathy with all present over their sad loss—”

  He droned on. The detective’s eyes wandered slowly round the room and paused when they met those of Arthur Cleyne. Cleyne nodded almost imperceptibly, in
recognition of their previous casual meeting in the inn.

  “We come now to the will itself,” said the solicitor, unfolding the blue paper before him. “It is of interest to all present, and to a few, also, who are absent. The property itself, of course, being entailed property, passes automatically to—er—that is, it would fall first to Mr. Holt’s son, Peter, or, failing him, to Mr. Holt’s nephew, Mr. Arthur Cleyne—”

  “Or, failing him, Mr. Edward Cleyne,” interposed Crook quietly.

  The solicitor frowned and, readjusting his glasses, stared at the interrupter.

  “That would be so,” he observed dryly, “if the contingency arose.”

  “That was what I meant,” replied the detective. “If the contingency arose.”

  Arthur Cleyne was frowning now, and his brother Edward wore a slightly heightened colour as he glanced across at his fiancé. There was a short pause in the proceedings.

  IV

  Then the solicitor inquired icily:

  “And how, pray, can that contingency arise, since Mr. Arthur Cleyne is with us in this room?”

  “Well, the claim is not valid just yet at any rate,” responded the detective blandly. “For one thing, we are not even sure that Mr. Peter Holt is dead. And, for my part,” he added, “I don’t believe he is.”

  The solicitor drummed with his fingers on the table.

  “Is this the time to discuss your personal opinions, sir?” he asked.

  “Why, it seems to me a most appropriate time,” said the detective. “We are reading the late Mr. Holt’s will in the absence of the most important beneficiary.”

  The solicitor, annoyed and surprised to find his brisk little personality overshadowed by the quieter authority of his opponent, shrugged his shoulders impotently, and Edward Cleyne stepped into the breach.

  “What makes you so certain that Peter Holt is still alive?” he demanded.

  “I cannot see any possible motive for suicide,” replied Crook. “Can you?”