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Heath Hover Mystery

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<h3 class="chapter">Chapter Fourteen.</h3> <h4 class="event">The Coming of Helston Varne.</h4> “I’m thinking we can about decide to give up the Heath Hover business as a bad job,” said Inspector Nashby to his auxiliary, one night as they sat over whisky and water and pipes, in the inspector’s snug private quarters in Clancehurst. “Are you?” said the other, in a matter of fact way. “Why, yes. There’s nothing in it, absolutely no clue whatever. So far, no one has come forward to make even so much as an enquiry as to the identity of the dead man, and, if you remember, he looked foreign. Mervyn, too, said he talked with a slightly foreign accent. Now all that goes to show the thing couldn’t well have concerned Mervyn. Where’s the motive? That’s what I want to locate. I’m all for motive. Show motive, and it won’t be long before you get your case right home. That’s what I say—always have said.” “Motive—eh?” “Yes. Motive. Now what the deuce motive could Mervyn have had for doing away with this chap? First he fishes him out of the ice, in the middle of a dead cold snow-stormy night, at some risk to himself; then he takes him in and does for him in the most hospitable manner.” “‘Does for him’—Is that a joke, Nashby?” “Well, no. But what I’m getting at is—supposing Mervyn had a motive for wanting this fellow in Kingdom Come, all he had to do was to leave him in the water. See? He needn’t have gone to the bother of hauling him out at all.” “So Stewart seemed to think,” was the answer. Stewart had been the speaker’s predecessor in the private investigation of the case, but had come pretty much to the same conclusion that the local police official had, that it was hardly worth while going on with. This man had then appeared on the scene to take it up, rather to Nashby’s astonishment. To the latter he was an “outside” man, but he had come properly accredited. To tell the truth, he had come as rather a nuisance. Nashby wanted the discovery of whatever there was to discover to his own credit. He did not relish any one from outside coming in to benefit by his gleanings. “I don’t want to say anything against Stewart,” went on the last speaker. “I expect he’s an excellent man, in his line. In fact, from what I hear, I’m sure he is—in his line.” “Well, but—what the devil good are any one of us if it isn’t in his line?” said the inspector, feeling rather nettled, but pushing the cut glass decanter—an ingredient of an appreciative public testimonial Tantalus—towards the other as though to cover it. The said other might have smiled pityingly—he felt like it—but did not. “That sounds conclusive,” he answered. “But—it’s just when you get off your ‘line’ that you make discoveries. Now you know I’m not talking through my hat. I’ve had experiences—not in this country—that most of you here never get. I don’t say it to brag, mind, but as a bald statement of fact.” “I know that, Mr Varne,” said Nashby, deferentially. “Well, we don’t get ’em, and it’s not our fault if we don’t.” “Of course it isn’t. It’s all a question of opportunity. There are at least ten men in the world who would stretch a point to get me put out of the way, and at least four more who are vowed to do it. Out of these at least one will succeed sooner or later. But in that case it will puzzle you, and all the Yard, to find the motive.” “You don’t say so!” said the inspector, gazing at the speaker, with a new access of veneration. “As we’re alone I don’t mind admitting I’m only a plain man who’s worked his way up, but—sink me if I wouldn’t rather be out of the force than have so many desperate scoundrels sworn to do me down some time or other. Here, you see, we run some one to earth—he does his stretch and there’s an end of it. No malice borne—and all that.” The man who had been named as Varne could not repress the smile this time, at what to him was the simple grooviness of this country policeman, as he defined him in his own mind. But he managed to make the smile a good-natured one. “Ah, well, there are shaggier parts of the world than this, Nashby,” he said, mixing his glass again. “Here’s to the Heath Hover mystery.” “And its unravelling,” answered Nashby, raising his own glass. “I’ve been here—let’s see, how long have I been here? Three days—and a half, to be strictly accurate, and I’ve made one discovery, but only one.” “What’s that?” said the inspector, brisking up. “Well, it’s what I came in to tell you about. But—don’t let it go to the rest of the Force.” “Not me,” was the emphatic reply. “Well then, Mervyn is hiding something.” “Hiding something? Not the thing that did the job? Why there was no trace of any injury about the man.” “No doubt. But Mervyn is hiding something. When I find that something we shall have the key to the whole mystery.” “Well, we didn’t search the whole house,” said Nashby. “It would take about a week to do that, and only three or four rooms were used at all. We searched that weird old family vault of a cellar though. There’s nothing loose there. It’s firm everywhere. He showed us over it himself.” “Of course he did. He’d have been a fool if he hadn’t. But what he’s hiding isn’t in the house at all. It’s outside.” “Outside?” Helston Varne nodded. “Has a smack of that Moat Farm affair,” said Nashby, “only there they had something definite to find—a body. Here we’ve nothing. But how did you get at that for a clue?” “I’ve been down here three days—and a half, to be strictly accurate; there’s nothing like accuracy. Yet I’ve hit upon that much. The other day I thought I’d hit upon everything, but I hadn’t quite. It was just one of those exciting moments when you miss a thing just by a hairsbreadth, as it were. But it’s getting very warm—very warm indeed.” Nashby filled a fresh pipe and said nothing. He was looking at the other enviously. Helston Varne’s reputation, among the secret few, was prodigious. If the scent was really getting very warm from his point of view, why then the mystery was as good as solved. But then, Nashby wanted the credit of solving it to be his own. He wondered if Varne would manage things so that it might be. There was a good deal of the amateur about Helston Varne he had been given to understand, clever, marvellously clever as he had proved himself. At any rate, he was independent of material emolument, or at any rate seemed so. He seemed good-natured too. Perhaps whatever discovery he made he would contrive to let him—Nashby—get the benefit of some appreciable share in it. The other smoked on in silence, the lamplight full on his strong, sun-browned, clear-cut face—a sun-brown that showed he had won his reputation in tougher climates than this—as he had hinted to the inspector. Moreover, there was a marked difference between the two men which defined class distinction at a glance. “Anything more known about this young lady who’s stopping at Heath Hover, Nashby, beyond what you told me?” said Varne suddenly. “Why, yes. I got at something fresh to-day, only to-day.” And the inspector began to bristle up with a sense, as it were, of renewed importance. “Yes, only to-day, and I was going to tell you, but I was waiting to hear what you had to say first, Mr Varne,” he added deferentially. “She’s Mervyn’s niece right enough, on her mother’s side. Her father suicided. Jumped off a train, after taking a couple of thousand pound accident insurance tickets, which he handed to her, with a joking remark, overheard unfortunately for him—for them—by a station inspector on the platform. Railway company repudiated liability, and there you are.” “Clumsy—very,” pronounced the other, musingly. “Lord, what fools there are in the world, Nashby. Why, there were half-a-dozen ways of working that trick, perfectly successfully and carrying far more money with them too.” “Then she went as a music teacher in a suburban villa, and got cleared out; I suppose she was too pretty, and the old woman got jealous.” “I don’t know about that part of it, but she certainly is pretty,” said Varne. “She’s more. She’s lovely; and so absolutely uncommon looking. Well?” “Then she went to stay with a girl friend—and got ill. Her uncle heard of her, and got her down to keep house for him. So there you are again. I heard the particulars only this morning. The Yard can find out everything, you see.” Whether the other saw or not, he smiled, enigmatically. Perhaps he was wondering whether “The Yard” knew as much about what his then colleague had been telling him as he did himself. “She wasn’t there at the time of the—happening,” he said. “No, not till—what? Nearly a month afterwards? And now she has been there over a fortnight. No, Nashby. Whatever the Yard can find out—or can’t,”—again that smile came forward, “you can rule Miss—er—Seward out of this business altogether.” The inspector felt a trifle disappointed. He thought he had found a new, and complicating, and rather interesting element in the case. He was a little inclined to feel rebellious against Helston Varne’s opinion, but then he had a very considerable respect for Helston Varne. “The tale about Heath Hover—it’s rather interesting,” went on the latter. “I might have said extraordinary, but then, I don’t know. I’ve met with just such extraordinary cases in the course of my experience, and have been the means of unravelling at least two of them. Now I’m going to try and see if this one will hang up at all on the same peg as our mystery, but—I don’t know, I don’t know.” He had subsided into a meditative, almost dreamy tone, gazing into the fire, and emitting slow puffs of smoke. Nashby was eyeing him with a touch of increased veneration—likewise expectation. He was hoping to get those narratives before their evening had closed. “Have another whisky,” he said, jumping up with alacrity. “I’m sorry, I’m sure. I ought to have seen you were empty.” “Thanks. By the way, do you mind telling me again what is precisely the source of scare that hangs round Heath Hover?” Inspector Nashby looked as if he rather did mind, for he seemed to hesitate. “Oh, it’s only a lot of countryside superstition,” he said. “But no one who took the place has ever been able to stick it long. I don’t know either, that any one has ever seen anything. I think they only hear.” The other nodded. “Just so. Reminds me of one of the cases I was just now referring to, one I was instrumental in clearing up. That was a matter of sound. I think I shall really have to obtain entrance to Heath Hover. You say this man gets it rent free?” “At a nominal rent, yes.” “Well, why doesn’t the owner pull it down, and run up another house on another site?” “Because—to put the matter nakedly—he’s afraid to.” “Afraid to?” “Yes. Afraid it would bring him bad luck—fatally bad luck. Old Sir John Tullibard’s a bit of a crank, and believes in that sort of thing. What’s more, he’s rather proud of owning a place with that kind of reputation.” “And that door—what did you say it does?” “Why, it opens of itself, when something is going to happen. It’s a curious thing that Mervyn should have sworn it did this very thing the night of this double barrelled event. But he did—and stuck to it.” “Yes. It’s certainly curious. Mervyn doesn’t strike me as the sort of man who’d decline to believe his eyesight. He’s rather a hard-headed looking chap I should say, and I can’t get anything out of the surrounding yokels about it. I’ve expended—let me see—at least two half crowns in the neighbouring pubs during the three days—and a half—since I came, trying to make them talk. But they shut up like steel traps when you try and get them on the subject of Heath Hover.” “So they would,” said Nashby, “and for the reason that they hold it to be dead unlucky even to talk about the yarns that hang around the place.” “Oh,” and Varne smiled. He had noticed that very reluctance about Nashby himself. “Do you believe there’s anything in all that?” he said, facing the other with a very direct look. “You, yourself?” “Well, the fact is, Varne—and there’s no denying it—very curious things do happen in some places. Things that there’s no explaining or clearing up.” “I agree with you, Nashby—as to the first. Very curious things do happen in some places—yes, very curious things. But as to there being no explaining them, or clearing them up—why I don’t go with you there. Now look here—I don’t say it to brag—but given time, and no interference, and it being made worth my while, I undertake to dis-ghost every haunted house in England.” His keen face had lighted up. Nashby looked at him rather admiringly. The latter was an ordinary square-headed, broad-built policeman, who, unarmed, would have advanced to arrest an armed criminal without the smallest hesitation or wavering. But he was country born and bred, and country superstition is an ingrained thing. “Well, Mr Varne, at that rate there’s a new line in front of you, and no mistake, and it ought to be a paying one,” he rejoined. “Why not begin on Heath Hover for one?” “Because none of my conditions would apply to it. Time—that might—no interference, that certainly would not, for I should have to stay in the house for a while. And—making it worth it, would apply less still, since this Mervyn is only a tenant, doesn’t seem to care a damn about the haunting part, and is poor into the bargain you say?” “Yes. He’s hasn’t got too much rhino. He was something in India and retired on a pension. He commuted about half of it to run an invention which he thought would make his fortune, and it didn’t.” “Of course not. Inventions have been known to make fortunes, but practically never for the inventor. Now how could I get a look in at Heath Hover? It wouldn’t do as being concerned in this case, you know.” “Oh Lord, no,” said the other, with some alacrity. “Why, it’s supposed to be dead and forgotten, and that’s just the stage at which we expect to be able to get something out of it—if we ever do at all, that is.” “Hasn’t he got any old oak in the place? Panelling, doors—that sort of thing? Might work in on the connoisseur, scientific lay, don’t you see?” “I don’t know. Perhaps. Yes, now I think of it there’s rather a rum old fireplace. It’s in the room where the door is, too, and, now I think of it again, the door itself is rather a quaint affair, with a curious handle, and lock, and all that. You could ‘make up’ a bit. You know—look like a sort of scientific professor, and all that.” “No. I don’t think I’ll make up. I’ll just chance it as I am. And I think, Nashby, that within the next day or two I shall have found out all about the inside of Heath Hover—as far as it concerns our case.” <hr /> <div class="page-break"></div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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