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THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
John Ferguson
On the lonely Keppoch moor a dense fog was settling
while four young sportsmen doggedly continued their
"shoot." There was a sudden report and a few minutes
later one of the party was discovered seriously wounded.
Several days after, when the victim of that unfortunate "ac-
cident" was well on the road to recovery in his host's house,
he was found shot through the temple.
The local police investigated with unusual thoroughness
and ingenuity, and had it not been for one minor fact, the
first shooting would have passed as accident, the second as
suicide. But that single detail was enough to arouse the
suspicions of Francis MacNab whose detective genius is well
known to readers of other Ferguson mysteries.
The criminal had made none of the mistakes so helpful to
the detective, and MacNab was unaided by any of those in-
tuitions which are convenient in fiction but seldom occur in
real life.
The result is a study in detection that will meet the ap-
proval of the most exacting reader, while a sinister premoni-
tion and tense excitement throughout will hold him to the
last page. As for attempting to outguess MacNab—Mr.
Ferguson's old readers will warn you that it's useless.
SOME SUCCESSFUL DETECTIVE STORIES
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE MURDER ON THE MARSH
THE MAN IN THE DARK
DEATH COMES TO PERIGORD


Would You Like to Know
how RED BADGE books are selected?
Each year, hundreds of detective-story manu-
scripts are submitted to the literary editors of
Dodd, Mead and Company. From these only a
very small number—ten or twelve at most—receive
the coveted Red Badge imprint. This is because
every detective story that carries the Red Badge
must first pass a rigid eight-point test—a test so
severe that all but absolutely first-class detective
stories are quickly eliminated.
If you would like to receive this eight-point test
which is used by the literary editors of Dodd, Mead
and Company in selecting Red Badge detective
stories, we will be glad to mail you a copy without
charge. Send your name and address to
Dodd, Mead & Company, Inc.
Department R B
449 Fourth Avenue, New York


Alexander
JOHN FERGUSON
THE
GROUSE MOOR
MURDER
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
NEW YORK
1934


COPYRIGHT, 1934,
BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY, INC.
AU rights reserved—no part of this book may be
reproduced in any form without permission in
writing from the publisher.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY QUINN & BODEN COMPANY, INC., SAHWAY, N. J.


tanah
6 20 LEI
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
PAGE
.
.
.
.
I MIST ON THE MOOR . . . .
II SERGEANT CAMERON REPORTS . .
III THE RED-HEADED YOUNG MAN . .
IV NIGHT
IV NIGHT . . . . . .
V MORNING . . . . .
VI SERGEANT CAMERON ON THE TRAIL .
VII THE TWO NO. 5 CARTRIDGES .
.
. .
VIII MR. WILLOUGHBY LENDS A HAND
ΙΟΙ
.
.
.
IIO
IX FISHING ON A GROUSE MOOR
X TESTS FOR AN ALIBI . .
XI DEATH IN A LIBRARY . . .
XII MRS. BRENT SHOCKS THE FISCAL
XIII A ROOM IN LOCH LAGGAN HOTEL
XIV DISCUSSION WITH RINTOUL ..
XV WHO WAS THE MAN? .
I20
XVI THE SOLICITOR FROM LONDON .
.
144
152
159
172
182
192
204
XVII TABLE TALK . . . . .
XVIII CHARACTER AND MOTIVE . .
XIX AN IMAGINARY GAME OF TENNIS
XX MISS CRESSWELL EXPLAINS . . .
XXI THE SCINTILLA ASPERA . . . .
XXII TROUBLE WITH THE SUPERINTENDENT .
XXIII THE BEDROOM DOOR . . . . .
XXIV THE THREE POSTAGE STAMPS . . .
XXV EXPOSURE · · ·
210
.
.
223
. 234
. 243
· 259





CHAPTER I
MIST ON THE MOOR
Constable Munro lifted his eyes to the clock. He had
cast many surreptitious glances at the clock in the last
half-hour. The clock hung on the whitewashed wall, high
above the sergeant's head. The sergeant's attention was
concentrated on some report he was laboriously writing.
For a time no sound broke the silence save the scratching
of his pen and the ticking of the clock. Munro yawned so
heartily that he seemed to be making a derisive face at
the sergeant's back.
Time appeared to stand still on that hot summer eve-
ning. Even the ticking of the clock sounded sluggish and
tired. Munro thought how good it would be when he
heard it gather itself together to strike the six snappy
strokes which would release him from duty. He had been
out all day on his motor-cycle, and a mobile officer of the
Inverness County Constabulary covers much ground in
his day's duty. But Munro, who three months back at
the end of his probation period had been reported by the
inspector as a zealous and promising young officer, hated
to look other than spick and span. And now the mirror-
like gloss was off his leather leggings, and much white
road dust clung to the smartly cut, dragoon-like breeches.
Young Munro was proud of his breeches. Those breeches
were the distinctive touch which differentiated him from
the other constables of his division. He loved walking
about in them. He loved the beautiful outward curve
they made above the slim, black leather leggings. He
was conscious that he attracted the feminine eye as he
walked about in his smart uniform. As for sitting with
tunic unbuttoned at the neck, like the sergeant, he
i


MIST ON THE MOOR
3
What, however, stood beyond dispute, was that when
a few minutes later they captured Haggerty in the wood,
he, unlike the gamekeeper, had no gun. Nor did the most
careful search by the police afterwards discover any gun.
As a result, some people, who knew the trouble Murdoch
had with poachers, were convinced that Murdoch—whose
violent temper was well known—had fired the shot in
order to get Haggerty brought up on a much more serious
charge than poaching. This view of the affair was also
that privately held by Sergeant Cameron and Munro,
who had an hour or so after the arrest vainly searched
Keppoch Wood for Haggerty's gun. It had told in the
accused man's favour also that he admitted hearing a
shot fired. But it was almost decisive evidence against
the graver charge that when Haggerty was taken the
game in the bag under his coat was found to be ground
game which certainly had been snared, not shot. So the
sentence of six months Haggerty received on account of
being found in possession of the game appeared to satisfy
every one, except Murdoch and the prisoner's friends.
Sergeant Cameron laid down his pen and applied the
blotting paper to his ledger.
"Well," he remarked, "the road will be near finished
before he's out again."
Munro knew to what he referred. Haggerty had been
one of the hundreds of navvies employed on the construc-
tion of the new road between Kinlochleven and Inverness.
That great road ran from sea to sea, skirting four lochs,
running through pine forests and doubling the shoulders
of mighty hills for nearly a hundred miles. It was not in
human nature to keep from poaching in such a sporting
country. And many of the men gathered from the cities
who found work on that road learned how to poach when
they came to those wilds. Herded together by fifties in


4
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
wooden huts set at intervals along the road, there was
little else to do when work ceased for the day except get
drunk, and fight, or poach. And there had been enough
of all three recreations to keep the law fully employed
for the last two years.
"Ay," Munro agreed, "they'll all be out of our division,
anyway."
He spoke half in regret at the prospect; for, as has
been said, he was a very zealous young officer, and unlike
his sergeant, who was all for peace and quietness, he had
not yet had his fill of fighting.
But Cameron's nose was down again at his writing, and
once more that somnolent silence pervaded the sleepy
little office. Then just at the moment when Munro began
to think with disgust of the reign of perfect peace and
utter dulness which would follow the exit of the navvies,
the telephone bell burst suddenly that silence like an
explosion. Cameron moved to the instrument and put
the receiver to his ear.
"Hullo!" he said. "Yes, this is the divisional office.
Who's speaking? . . . Oh I . . ."
While Cameron was listening the clock began to strike
the hour. But Munro scarcely heard. The concern now
visible on the sergeant's face arrested his attention.
While he waited, Grant, the constable who was to relieve
him, entered the office. At a sign from the sergeant's
back-swept hand Grant pulled up, waited a moment and
then tiptoed over beside Munro.
"Shot, did you say, sir? Where, exactly?" they heard
Cameron ask. He appeared to be getting rather detailed
information, and Munro judged it must be about the
geographical locality rather than the position of the
wound. After listening for a breath or two longer
Cameron slewed his head round in their direction, his ear


MIST ON THE MOOR
5
still at the receiver. "Out with your bike, Munro, and
fix on the combination. You, Grant, get the stretcher.
Quick now."
Munro and Grant hurried out and in the shed behind
the office quickly got to work on the job of fixing the
side-car to the police motor-cycle. While Munro had his
spanner on the last nut Grant was belting the stretcher
in between the side-car and the cycle. In another two
minutes Munro, mounted in position with his engine
kicking like a machine-gun, halted in front of the office
just as Cameron, buttoning the neck of his tunic, hurried
out to step into his seat.
"Keppoch," he said. "As far as the hill foot. I'll tell
you when to stop."
Munro slewed his machine round in a curve and enter-
ing the main street of the little town they set off in the
direction of Keppoch at a speed which appeared to satisfy
the sergeant. Once the last of the villas on the outskirts
had been left behind, Cameron explained.
"One of the Arrochmore folk has been shot," he said.
"That call was from Dr. Macfarlane."
"Accident, is it?" Munro hazarded, as he opened out
on the straight after negotiating the right-angle turn at
the bridge.
"So it would appear. Macfarlane rang us up for the
ambulance. Hadn't yet seen the man. One of the shoot-
ing party had just run'from the moor to call him. Mac-
farlane says he would leave this man to lead us to the
place. He's waiting on the roadside somewhere between
the forester's cottage and the lodge."
Then their speed was too fast for further talk. Munro,
familiar with all the roads, knew where their guide would
be waiting. The distance was not more than five miles
along the great new highway, and then about two miles


6
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
up the narrow winding side road towards Keppoch. It
was a long pull up once they left the Inverness road
behind; but, after topping the rise beyond Rigg Lodge,
they saw a man obviously on the look-out for them. He
stood by a car driven up close to the roadside, and came
forward as Munro brought his overheated engine to a halt
behind the stationary car. The young man was rather
short, had a chubby, fresh-coloured face, and his mop of
red hair was uncovered.
"Thank you," he said. "You've been pretty quick."
"Doctor's gone up?" the sergeant asked, getting busy
unfastening the stretcher.
"Not ten minutes ahead of you. I've just been fixing
up his car to make it easier for poor Brent." He nodded
at the doctor's car, his hands busy with the straps at the
other end of the stretcher.
"What happened?" Cameron asked.
"Put his foot in a rabbit hole, or tripped in the
heather. Anyway, he lost hold on his gun, which dis-
charged and hit him as it fell." He paused for a moment
as if envisaging the sequence of events. "No one noticed
at first. We were spread out, you know, in line, and
there's a good deal of mist up there to-day."
Munro and the sergeant shouldered the stretcher. At
first the going was easy enough to allow the young man
to walk at Cameron's side.
"Rather a nasty business for all of us," he said a trifle
nervously. "You see, before Mr. Willoughby went away
this morning to give evidence against some poacher he'd
caught, he remarked that, anyway, it wouldn't be a lost
day since the mist up on the moor would be too thick
to make shooting possible."
Cameron, after a minute, said: "Mr. Willoughby's been
tenant here for years. He would know the conditions."


MIST ON THE MOOR 9
•
stood watching, he perhaps alone saw his superior officer's
eyes dilate as if in surprise as he turned with what looked
like a frown to stare at the doctor. But Macfarlane paid
no attention to the unspoken question, unless indeed the
momentary pursing of his lips conveyed something. Any-
way, it seemed all the answer Sergeant Cameron required,
for he gave no further sign, and, it appeared, needed no
verbal directions as to what the doctor wanted him to do.
Munro, standing back, turned his inquiring eyes on the
wounded man's companions. They were all young, every
one of the five dressed in tweeds of the best sporting cut,
though variation in taste was indicated by the differences
in check and pattern.' A common anxiety, however, was
written on all their faces. The red-headed youth, whose
brown Harris clothes seemed chosen to blend in with his
hair, whispered a question as to whether the doctor had
said anything in his absence. Munro noticed that the
question passed unanswered. All eyes were on the pros-
trate man. •
Macfarlane had now cut away both jacket and shirt,
exposing the neck and chest, but without revealing fur-
thei; wounds. The sergeant seemed to know what Mac-
farlane wanted done. Standing astride the body, with
one arm around the waist and the other behind the head,
he gently lifted the man clear of the ground while Mac-
farlane dexterously wound bandages across the body and
over the right shoulder to bind the left arm close to the
side.'
At a nod from the doctor Munro brought up his
stretcher on which the wounded man was laid. Only then
did Macfarlane break silence.
"Which was his coat?" he asked.
Some one picked up a white Burberry macintosh. But
at the doctor's nod Sergeant Cameron put out his hand


10
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
for it. After a quick look he turned to Macfarlane.
"Something warmer would be better, doctor," he sug-
gested.
From those offered he selected a light raincoat, and
with this covered all but the face of the man on the
stretcher. While Macfarlane was packing his bag they
began to question him.
"Is it—serious, doctor?" one asked, bending down to
whisper.
Macfarlane, still busy, did not look round.
"You can never be sure with gun-shot wounds," he
replied.
"I mean—will he—recover?" another breathed.
"Oh, yes, I think so—if no complications follow."
Macfarlane's encouraging tone brought an audible sigh
of relief. Instantly they passed to the next step to be
taken. The tallest of the five took control.
"Some one ought to go down to the house and prepare
them—you, Toplis."
The red-headed young man almost recoiled.
"No, no! You'd do it better, Harwood."
"But you can tell them it's not serious—the doctor
says so. Come on, now, buck up. We others will carry
Brent by turns."
"Jolly sight harder that will be," another said with af-
fected conviction.
Apparently they all shirked carrying back news of the
accident, and as if to force the duty on Toplis, they
stepped towards the stretcher. But Sergeant Cameron,
notebook in hand, intervened.
"One moment, gentlemen," he said. "As I have to
report this accident I must get fuller particulars about it
from you."
"Now?" one of them asked, lifting his eyebrows and


MIST ON THE MOOR
II
looking pointedly over at the stretcher.
Macfarlane, standing by the sergeant, replied:
"He's badly shocked. A little rest with his feet ele-
vated, will do him good, if you move out of earshot," he
added.
"Maybe you could show me the exact place where he
fell," Cameron suggested. "It wasn't here, I think."
Munro saw that if they had been in line, and in sight
of each other at the time of the accident, it could not
have been there, since a clump of gorse and birch-trees
would have hidden the wounded man from all of them.
The spot on which they were standing was a small level
place like a cut in the side of the ridge, three or four
yards in extent with the shrubs and gorse growing on its
upper edge. It looked the sort of spot where sheep and
cattle might seek for shelter on a stormy night.
Cameron stood waiting for a reply from one or other
of them. Munro noted that they exchanged a look as if
each waited for some one else to speak. Dr. Macfarlane,
standing over the injured man, eyed them with interest.
It was the tall fellow in check tweed, whom the red-
headed youth had called Harwood, who eventually re-
plied: 1
"No, we carried him here. But I think I can show
you the spot."
They were all about to follow him when Cameron
stopped them.
"Take your game-bags and these guns with you,
please," he said. "I want to know exactly your different
positions."
The bags and guns had been placed on a coat, and
there were five bags, but only two guns. When each had
picked up his own property, one gun and one game-bag
remained unclaimed. The sergeant himself took the re-


12
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
maining gun with him. Some twenty yards out on the
ridge Harwood stopped.
"It was just here, wasn't it, Toplis?" he said.
The red-haired young man looked about him and
agreed.
"As I told you, sergeant, we were shooting home and
Brent was the last man on the extreme left."
Cameron handed Brent's gun to Munro and reproduced
his notebook.
"Now, gentlemen, I'd like, if you don't mind, to set
down your different positions in the line. Who was next
to Mr. Brent?"
"I was," said Toplis.
"Full name?"
"Charles James Toplis."
"Thank you, sir. Sorry to bother you all like this, but
you'll understand I have to send in a full report," the
sergeant said. "Now, Mr. Toplis, just go and take up
as nearly as possible the position you occupied when it
first occurred to you that something had happened to Mr.
Brent."
Toplis nodded assent.
"I can easily do that, for I dropped my gun at the
spot," he said.
"You saw him lying here, then?" Cameron asked.
"No. But losing sight of him I came down to look
and found him just here."
"After giving the others a shout to stop?"
"No. I didn't think of doing that till I found him."
"Well, sir," said Cameron encouragingly, "just go to
the spot where you stopped when you thought something
might have happened to Mr. Brent."
Munro was surprised to see the young man take a
forward diagonal course which led him to a position


MIST ON THE MOOR
13
above the clump of birches marking the nook to which
the wounded man had afterwards been carried. But the
sergeant showed no surprise; and Munro perceived that
of course the party must have advanced some distance
before Brent had been missed.
Presently Toplis, after several pauses to look around
and about him, stopped at a point some forty yards off
and put up his gun as a signal. Munro had to draw the
sergeant's attention to the fact, for while Toplis had
been scouting for his position the sergeant, as if to fill
in time, had requested the others to show him exactly
how they had found Mr. Brent lying when they arrived
on the scene.
There was some slight disagreement over minor details,
but when it was agreed that Brent had been lying with
his head in the direction in which they were moving,
Cameron himself extended his length on the ground and
asked them to arrange him exactly as they had found
Brent. Their first act was to turn the sergeant on his
back. He seemed surprised. He let out a little "Oh!"
as if he had been hurt. Harwood next placed the left
hand against his side: it was about this the disagreement
arose. But Harwood pointed out that Brent's wound
was on the left side of his body and it was to this that
his hand would naturally go as he fell.
"And the gun?" the sergeant suggested.
"I picked it up," Harwood said, "so I know just where
it lay."
Munro surrendered the weapon and Harwood put it
on the turf about two yards beyond the sergeant's feet
with the muzzle pointing directly at him and the butt in
a clump of heather. It was at this point that Munro
drew attention to the fact that Toplis had found his spot.
At first Sergeant Cameron did not seem to hear.


14
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
"Creag Dhu," he said, staring up at Munro. "See
where that gun is; he must have been looking behind
him when he fell."
"Quite," Harwood agreed, "and that would explain
why he tripped up."
"Stumbled, let's say," Cameron, still on his back, sug-
gested, "there being nothing about his feet to trip on."
"The gentleman has found the spot, sergeant," Munro
repeated.
Cameron rolled over on his side and looked towards
the gesticulating Toplis.
"So he has," he said after a moment, "so he has."
As he lay staring, his slow deliberation appeared to
annoy Harwood.
"Aren't we keeping the doctor waiting?" he inquired
with obvious sarcasm.
Cameron got to his feet.
"If you knew him, sir," he said, "you would know he's
not the one to be kept waiting longer than is necessary."
Harwood lifted his eyebrows.
"Necessary?" he echoed incredulously.
The sergeant, who had been sketching out a rough
plan in his notebook, seemed not to hear.
"Who walked next to Mr. Toplis?" he asked, look-
ing up.
"I did," said Harwood.
"Full name, please?"
The tone had something of a sergeant on the drill
ground in it now.
"Gerald James Everard Harwood."
"Thank you, sir. Now, if you will go and take up as
nearly as possible—" He waved his pencil, and Har-
wood set off at once. Cameron turned to the two who
remained.


MIST ON THE MOOR
IS
"Next?" he demanded crisply.
The slight, fair-headed man who had the second gun
under his arm, stepped forward.
"Philip Herbert Cresswell," he said. "Must I really
go up there again? It won't be so easy for me. You see,
I'm the only one who didn't drop my gun. You won't
see me from here, you know."
But the sergeant waved him away.
"Oh, I'll come on till I do," he said reassuringly, be-
fore turning to the last man. This was a stocky youth,
plump in body and rather short in the legs.
"Ronald Henry Joliffe," he said. "But I was right at
the top of the slope and didn't get down till they'd car-
ried him to where he is now. So—"
"What brought you down, sir?" the sergeant asked.
"Well, I just missed Phil—Mr. Cresswell—you know,
and, as it were, rolled down to see where he'd gone."
"You had been seeing him?"
"Oh, yes; it wasn't so thick as all that near the top.
I could see Jerry, too, occasionally."
"Not continuously?"
"No, the mist lay thicker lower down the slope, and
it had been growing more dense till he was blotted out."
"And Mr. Toplis?"
"Oh, him I hadn't seen for—well—the previous twenty
minutes at least. Ever since the mist began to creep
up the slope, that is. So you see when I lost sight of
even Cresswell I began to feel it was time we chucked it.
That's what I came down to suggest. We'd been shoot-
ing home, you know. And we'd have given it up sooner
only we'd such a short distance to go till we reached the
end of the moor."
While speaking, his eyes had been following the pro-
gress of Cresswell's climb, and hopefully he drew the


16 THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
sergeant's attention to him. "Look," he said. "You
can't see Jerry now, much less Cresswell. Is it really
essential for me to hoof it up there again?"
But the sergeant did not yield.
"Sorry, sir," he said, tapping his notebook with the
pencil, "but it is essential for me to give an idea of the
distances on the sketch plan my superiors expect from
me in all such accidents."
Mr. Joliffe, with a deep sigh of resignation, but no
further protest, set his short legs in motion for the climb.
The young constable watched him go with contempt in
his eyes.
"Lazy young beggars," he remarked.
But before Joliffe had gone more than ten yards the
sergeant called to him and the young man turned hope-
fully.
"Just one thing more," Cameron said. "Could you
give me an idea how long you went on after you lost sight
of Mr. Cresswell on your left?"
Joliffe removed one hand from a pocket to scratch his
head thoughtfully. He seemed to welcome even a respite
from his climb.
"Let me see," he drawled. "I didn't notice that par-
ticularly—not at first, I mean. Perhaps ten minutes.
Maybe not so much. It would seem longer, wouldn't it,
once I missed him and kept on trying to—er—pick him
up again? Gave me rather a creepy feeling, you know,
to find myself—well—alone on a wide, wide sea, as it
were."
"There had been no shooting for some time, then?"
"No. Not, that is, till I heard one bang down below.
That, of course, was when poor Brent tripped up and
his gun went off. That's what put the feeling of being
alone on the sea into my head perhaps. It sounded just


18 THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
"Did what?" he asked casually.
Then the young officer, not having been to the war,
received the shock of his life.
"Shot him, of course," said Cameron.
Munro jumped as if he had himself been shot. He
nearly dropped Brent's gun.
"My God," he whispered, "what makes you suspect
that?"
"I don't suspect, I know," said Cameron. He pointed
to the gun in Munro's nerve-shaken hands. "You maybe
have the proof of it there. Look here, no officer should
be taken by surprise like that." Sergeant Cameron spoke
sharply. Munro pulled himself together.
"Sergeant, I had no notion you were suspecting that."
"No? It never occurred to you to wonder why I am
taking so much trouble, did it? Man, it's not because
I suspect; it's because I know."
He pointed to the wounded man's gun which was in
Munro's charge.
"Throw open the breech and see what you find inside."
Munro had a grip of himself now. There was a click
of the breech bolt. Cameron came close and their two
heads bent together as they peered into the breech at
the two round brass ends of the cartridges. Munro did
not need to use the ejector to know that neither was
empty. He knew that neither cartridge had been fired,
for there was no trace of a hammer-mark on the cop-
per nipples.
"Well?" the sergeant said, "what's your notion of it?"
"It was another gun that knocked him over," Munro
declared.
"Clever lad!" Cameron patted him on the back.
"And now we've got to find out whose gun it was."
Munro flushed at the sergeant's ironical praise while


MIST ON THE MOOR
19
the sergeant was looking around, apparently puzzled and
uncertain. It seemed as if Cameron had despatched the
men to their former positions in the shooting line in
order to find out something on the spot at which Brent
had fallen.
"Andy," Cameron said at last, "you and me must not
make a botch 0' this affair."
"No," Munro replied, pleased to hear again the friendly
form of address. "We'll have to get the man that
did it."
Cameron stroked his chin thoughtfully.
"But did he know he did it?" he said, half to himself.
"Know he did it?"
"Ay. In this weather it might have been an accident.
We can't be sure yet. There's just the one thing I'm
sure of. One of them at least has been lying to me.
Him that's nearest to us now, and was nearest when it
happened."
"Toplis!" Munro's eyes went to where Mr. Toplis
stood, a dim figure seen as through a blue veil.
"That's the man. He knows more than he's willing to
tell, anyway. What I'm not sure of is whether the others
know anything or not."
"Well, sergeant—" Munro hesitated.
"Well, what?"
"Well, I was just thinking they'll suspect something's
wrong from the way you're keeping them up there now."
"Not them! If they know nothing they'll suspect
nothing, or at least only what you were yourself suspect-
ing just now."
Munro opened his eyes.
"What's that?" he asked.
"That I am only an over-offeecious country police ser-
geant mighty anxious to show his authority." Then cut-


CHAPTER II
SERGEANT CAMERON REPORTS
Superintendent Rintoul put out his hand, and, push-
ing the lamp on the table to one side, stared across at his
sergeant. Rintoul had got back from Inverness half an
hour ago. In fact he still wore the overcoat which he
had forgotten to remove after the sergeant had stepped
up to his car with his urgent news.
Rintoul, tall, but rather spare in body, looked his age
of forty-five, his close-cut black hair being slightly shot
with silver, though his equally close-cropped moustache
retained its jet original hue. Out of his deep sunk eyes
he stared across at the sergeant who was busy fingering
over the pages of his notebook.
"You got no statement from the man?" he asked.
"No, sir. Dr. Macfarlane, when I called in at Arroch-
more on my way back, said he was unfit to make one.
But Munro is there to take a statement from him if he
pulls round to-night."
"Dr. Macfarlane still there?" Rintoul asked.
"Yes. At least I take it he must be, for he undertook
to call in here on his way home on the chance of seeing
you."
Rintoul nodded.
"All right, sergeant. Go ahead with your story."
Cameron stated his case, Rintoul listening with but
the briefest questions at rare intervals. And, as the ser-
geant was quick to observe, there was nothing in any
of those questions to show how his story was being
taken. That, of course, was all in keeping with Rin-
toul's character. Persons under examination by the divi-
sional superintendent soon came to know those black
21


22
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
inscrutable eyes set in the rather sallow, mask-like face
from which no sign or hint could be picked up as to
whether they were being believed or not.
"Well, Cameron," he said, when the story was over,
"it seems beyond dispute that the man did not shoot
himself."
"That's a sure thing, sir," the sergeant nodded. "The
gun was discharged at a distance of fifteen feet at least."
Rintoul shifted slightly in his chair.
"But that does not imply there was any deliberate
attempt at murder. You see that, of course?"
Cameron put his notebook face down on the table.
"Certainly I do, sir. It's just within the bounds of
what's possible that one of them may have lost his direc-
tion in that mist and shot the other by accident."
"And without knowing what he had done."
The sergeant rubbed his chin in slow deliberation.
There were several comments he could make as to that.
"Come," Rintoul insisted. "They, unlike you, would
never think of looking into the breech of his gun. They
took it for granted, quite naturally, when they found
him lying there, that he had tripped up and got hit by
his own gun."
"But a gun discharged as close as that doesn't put a
pellet or two into a man's biceps or collar bone; it either
misses him altogether or blows his arm away."
Rintoul bent forward and rapped the table sharply
with his knuckles.
"Yes, I know that. So do you. But how do you
know that any of these young fools know anything about
the extent and exact angle and range at which small shot
begins to scatter?"
Cameron for a time regarded the polished surface of
his chief's table through half-closed lids.


24
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
I may take it, I suppose, that you saw nothing but the
deepest concern reflected on every face?"
Cameron flinched rather at this. It sounded so exactly
like what he had heard in the witness box when under
cross-examination. But he replied to the question dif-
ferently this time.
"The more guilty a man is the more concern I'd expect
to see on his face, sir."
"Oh, you would, would you?"
"Certainly," the sergeant declared. "As a blind he'd
put it on as thick as he could."
"Thicker than the one among them who—let's say—.
was his dearest friend?"
Cameron, taken aback, almost gasped.
"Well—" he said, and was silent.
"Ah!" Rintoul nodded. "You see where this sort of
stuff leads you. Let's get back to facts and stick to them,
if you please." Then, as if to indicate that real business
was about to begin, Rintoul, getting up, removed his coat
and hung it on the peg behind the door. When he sat
down again Cameron took up his notebook. He felt a
little shaken. Although not unfamiliar with his chief's
Socratic method, he had never before been himself led
into absurd conclusions by such apparently innocent
questions.
"Well, sir," he began, "there's one hard fact in this
case I can't get over, and that is the lie one of them told
me. A needless lie, sir, if everything had been what it
seemed."
Rintoul, chin in cupped hands and elbows on the table,
nodded.
"Go ahead, sergeant."
"I'd like you to follow it by the plan I drew out in my
notebook," he said, reaching across the table and laying


SERGEANT CAMERON REPORTS 2 5
the book under the other's eyes. Rintoul narrowed his
eyes over it and then looked up.
"Yes; you've made it all as plain as a pikestaff.
There are the relative positions of the five men at the
moment the shot was fired, I suppose. Now show me
where the lie you speak of comes in."
"Not at the moment the shot was fired. If you re-
member, they went on for a while after that. The man
on the right of the advance—Joliffe that was—said he
heard the shot just before he came in sight of a dead tree
that looked like a ship's mast, and the sound of that
shot in the mist made him think of a rocket from a ship
in distress.
"So his position on the plan represents the distance
Joliffe advanced after hearing that shot?"
"Exactly. You'll notice he got farther than any of the
others. Quite likely he did, since he was at the top of the
slope, almost on the moor level, where the mist lay much
less thick."
The superintendent, shutting his eyes, laid his cheek
upon one supporting hand.
"That is to say, the farther down the slope you got the
denser the mist became?"
"That's right, sir. When we reached the scene I
noticed the burn at the bottom of the gully was quite
invisible. In fact the mist lay down there like a snow-
drift with just the tops of the pines on the other side of
the burn rising about it. And it's there the lie comes into
the story," he added.
"I'm listening," Rintoul said, as the sergeant paused.
"You'll maybe remember, sir, that according to Joliffe's
tale it was not hearing the shot that brought him down
to look for the others, but the fact that he had lost
contact with the man Cresswell who was next him?


26
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
Well," Cameron resumed after waiting for Rintoul's nod
of assent, "that was exactly what Toplis said brought
himself down to look for Brent. He too had lost sight of
the man who should have been moving along on his left.
In other words, both men told the same story."
"Why not—if both were true?"
But Cameron sat forward to tap the table.
"One at least was lying," he declared.
"Any idea which of them?"
"Yes. Toplis for a certainty."
"A certainty, eh?" Rintoul's eyes reappeared.
But the sergeant did not flinch.
"Toplis," he declared, "was certainly lying when he
said he went down to look for Brent because he had lost
sight of him. I know that, sir, because when I sent
Toplis back to stand at the spot from which he had come
down to look for Brent, I had no difficulty in seeing
Toplis from the spot where he had found Brent. And
the mist was thicker by that time, had, in fact, been
getting thicker as the evening wore on. And Brent was
actually wearing a white macintosh when he was shot."
Rintoul, with his eyes on the sketch plan, said nothing
for quite a time.
"But if all that is true, this man Joliffe must also have
agreed to lie about it. Since if you saw a distance of
thirty yards down there where it was thicker, he must
have seen Cresswell at a distance of only twenty yards
up above where it was clearer."
"I don't think he was lying, sir," Cameron said. He
spoke quietly, in a significant tone that made Rintoul
throw up his head.
"Why not?" he demanded, reiterating the question
sharply when the sergeant hesitated.
"Well, sir, to tell you the truth, I don't think Cress-


SERGEANT CAMERON REPORTS
27
well was there for him to see."
"You don't think—?"
"No, I don't think he was there simply because Joliffe
must have seen him if he had been there."
Rintoul for the first time was really taken aback. He
could have asked why Joliffe might not be lying as well
as Toplis. It was indeed on the tip of his tongue to put
the question. But he saw there must be more in it than
that. It was, for one thing, a safer lie for Toplis to utter
since Brent, unlike Cresswell, was in no condition to con-
tradict him. Rintoul turned, impatient.
"Come," he commanded, "out with it, and all of it, at
once. Are you bringing a charge of attempted murder
against this man Toplis?"
"Oh, not against Toplis," the sergeant said quickly.
"Against whom, then?" Rintoul demanded.
Cameron for a breath or two fingered one of the bright
buttons on his tunic.
"Well, sir, I was just wondering if it wouldn't be better
for me to lay the facts before you, step by step that is,
as I came on them, and let you form your own conclu-
sions." Then, as Rintoul stared in perplexity, he added,
looking over at his notebook, "it would be easier to follow
what happened if we went over it step by step on my
plan."
Thrusting out a hand, Rintoul pulled a chair close up
to his own. Cameron came round the table to occupy it.
Rintoul pushed the notebook forward, and then drew the
lamp over to illuminate the drawing.
"First, sir," the sergeant began, "I'd like you to observe
how straggling the advance became as soon as they got
into the thicker belt of mist."
"Yes, it's evident enough from your plan. The young
idiots, another fifty yards farther and they'll be firing at


28
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
the backs of each other's necks."
Cameron's finger went to his drawing.
"I understand they could see each other until they
crossed this burn that comes down the slope. You will
remember that Joliffe lost sight of Cresswell just before
he came on the dead tree."
Rintoul had his nose to the plan.
"That circle marks the tree's position?"
"Yes—a dead poplar."
Rintoul grunted scorn.
"A fool tree, too, to think it could live up there."
"Notice how they get separated after the burn is
crossed. Joliffe tends to get closer to the top edge of
the slope away from the others," Cameron went on.
Rintoul nodded.
"With some idea of getting out of range, no doubt.
Seems to have hurried too, since he got so far ahead of
the others."
"Yes, sir. His direction and speed should be remem-
bered when we come to consider what happened to Brent
at the other end of the line."
Rintoul's eyes travelled down the plan to the cross
which marked the spot where Brent fell. Cameron con-
tinued:
"This plan shows the exact position of each man at
the moment when Toplis found the body and shouted
the alarm."
Rintoul looked up.
"The exact position? I can't imagine how you can be
so sure of that," he said.
"It was very easy. When they heard Toplis shout for
help—a scream is what Harwood called it—the first thing
they did was to drop their guns so as to run better. With
one exception these guns later on established the spot.


SERGEANT CAMERON REPORTS 20
each had reached when Toplis shouted. The men simply
went back and found their guns lying where they had
dropped them."
"Which was the exception?"
"Cresswell. He had not left either gun or bag behind."
"So his position, at least, is more or less guesswork?"
"It is—from the time Joliffe lost sight of him after he
himself crossed the burn. But my plan shows where he
said he was."
Rintoul sat awhile staring hard before him. Sergeant
Cameron sat silent too, as if afraid to intrude upon his
superior officer's thoughts. After a time Rintoul laid his
hand on the sergeant's arm.
"Get on with your process of elimination, sergeant.
I begin to guess what you're driving at."
Cameron regarded the opposite wall with a set face.
"I look at it like this, sir," he said. "It's not to be
denied that Brent was shot by a gun not his own. As
Munro will testify, we found his gun still loaded. And it
is certain the gun was fired from some position far
enough off to allow the shot to scatter. These are facts
there's no getting over. To tell the truth, as soon as I
saw the way the man was hit I hadn't any doubt. And I
saw Dr. Macfarlane knew it too. That's why I knew
what Munro would find in Brent's gun when I told him
to throw open the breech."
Rintoul here showed impatience.
"But look at your own plan, sergeant," he cried, jab-
bing a forefinger on the notbook; "it flatly contradicts
you. How could Brent be shot on his left side by a
man on his right?" Here the superintendent in his irri-
tation again took on the part of a counsel cross-examin-
. ing for the defence. "Are you suggesting that one of his


30
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
friends had a gun which could shoot round a corner?" he
asked.
Rintoul no doubt intended to give his sergeant a fore-
taste of what he might have to face in the witness-box.
And put like that, the question did make the sergeant
momentarily squirm on his seat. All the same, he re-
fused to be treated as a hostile witness at that moment.
"Wait a wee, sir," he pleaded. "I allow he was hit on
his left side, and I allow it seems impossible that while he
was advancing with men on his right he could have been
hit by one of them. But it's not so miraculous as it
appears. Suppose something made Brent turn and look
behind him. The moment he did that his left side would
be exposed to any one on his right, would it not?" Be-
fore Rintoul could reply he went on, "Further, sir, mark
this: unless Brent merely turned his head for a moment's
glance over his shoulder, he would have to stand still
to turn round and look behind him. Then suppose one
of them, for some reason yet unknown to us, wanted to
get him, isn't that just the moment he would be watch-
ing for—when he was standing still, and when from
the very fact that his left side was exposed, a wound
there would suggest the shot had come from quite the
opposite direction?"
"From some one farther down the slope, you mean, of
course?" Rintoul said. "But why should not the shot
actually have come from below? If that is a possibility
you have no right to exclude it. It's the most natural
explanation. Accept it and you needn't go on supposing
one thing after another."
"Beyond supposing somebody was down there with a
gun in his hands, sir," Cameron said mildly. "And we
have no reason to believe there was."
The superintendent waved a hand half impatiently^


SERGEANT CAMERON REPORTS 31
"All right, let's leave that for the present and look at
the men with the guns. You rule Joliffe out, I under-
stand?"
"Yes, sir. The direction he took and his distance
ahead of the others seem to me to clear him."
"And Toplis?"
"He told me a lie, of course. But I don't think he did
more. Toplis and Harwood did not lose sight of each
other. As I saw later each set down his gun within fifteen
yards of one another."
"Then why the lie?"
Cameron's reply was prompt. He had evidently
thought it all out.
"Probably because he thought one of his friends had
shot Brent by accident. He may not have seen who did
it, though he could have seen Brent fall. Something
made him stop, whatever it was. Notice that the other
man, Harwood, then got a few yards ahead—just about
the distance a slow walk would take him—compared with
the dash down Toplis made when he saw Brent fall."
Rintoul studied the plan once more.
"Yes, I see what you mean," he said, looking round.
"So you rule them all out except Cresswell."
"Cresswell could have done it," the sergeant asserted,
his eyes on his own plan. And Rintoul, seeing Cameron
eyeing his plan with obvious pride and satisfaction,' took
the assertion as a challenge to himself. Cameron, he felt,
was implying that with the facts now in'his knowledge
and with that plan of the ground under his eyes, he ought
to be able to see for himself just how Cresswell shot
Brent.
Rintoul, his elbows on the table, laid his cheek against
his uplifted hands and thought hard. His eyes were shut;
the sket£.i plan was by now engraved on his brain.
"When Toplis found Brent," Rintoul said, without


SERGEANT CAMERON REPORTS
33
“Just before they crossed the burn beside it.”
“Yes, as you say, sergeant, just before they crossed the
burn.” Rintoul appeared to be contemplating the burn
as it was imprinted in his memory, for though the plan
lay before him he still kept his eyes closed.
"In your plan, sergeant, that burn has one defect. It
shows the course it takes down the slope very clearly,
but fails to show the depths of its channel.”
Cameron's face lit up.
"Ah, sir, you're getting at it, I see,” he said, adding
with a mocking sort of sigh, "It's been running there a
long while, that burn. Say a matter of two thousand
years.”
“But there's not much water in it now?"
“That's right, sir. It's only the winter floods that
could have dug so deep a channel.” Cameron nodded
approvingly.
Rintoul laid his hand on the sleeve of Sergeant Cam-
eron's tunic.
"Sergeant, was Brent by any chance found lying on
his back when they reached him?”.
Cameron bent forward and hit the table with his
clenched fist.
"He was, sir, his head lying the way he'd been going,
and with his gun at his feet, too, where it had dropped
out of his hands when he turned right round as if to see
something he'd heard behind him.”
Rintoul looked up.
"I wonder if he saw what it was?”
“Maybe there's somebody else who's wondering that
too, at this very moment.”
Rintoul rose to take a turn about the room. Then he
faced about.
“Mind you, Cameron," he said, “all this does no more


34
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
than prove to us how Cresswell could have done the deed.
When Joliffe lost sight of him it may have been that he
dropped out of sight in the burn, and then stole down
hidden by the banks till he got within range of Brent,
where the burn takes that curve near the spot at which
Brent was shot. Then he had time to creep back a hun-
dred yards or so and come down openly after Toplis
and Harwood had reached Brent. It could be done, but
to fasten it on to him we shall need something very
much stronger than a possibility."
While Rintoul stood, hands behind his back, lost in
thought, Sergeant Cameron began to gather up his papers
from the table. But when the sergeant picked up his
notebook Rintoul came forward and took it from him to
study the plan once more.
"To stage a murder as a shooting accident there are
only two difficulties to be overcome," he said. "The first
is that you must get close enough to your victim and
then get away without being seen by others, and the
second is the difficulty of shooting him with his own gun.
Overcome these and you have the perfect murder."
"The burn and the misty weather gave him the chance
to get close up," Cameron agreed.
"But not quite close enough. I must have a look at
the place to-morrow. Perhaps the two sweeping curves
that burn makes took him longer than he reckoned on, so
that when he got there Brent had passed on just a shade
too far. And—supposing this is murder, of course—I
can't see how he meant to surmount the difficulty about
the gun."
Cameron hesitated.
"Surely, sir, that would look the easiest part of it.
He'd count on getting hold of Brent's gun while the
others were busy with him, and slipping a spent cartridge


SERGEANT CAMERON REPORTS
35
from his own gun into Brent's."
"Ye-s," Rintoul said thoughtfully. "Yes. Yet after
all, that trick didn't come off, sergeant. And if this is a
case of attempted murder he must have been desperately
anxious to get at Brent's gun. Just think, man! Nobody
carries a dead cartridge in the breech of his gun, and one
spent cartridge at least must be found in Brent's gun
afterwards. It was simply vital for him to get that
empty cartridge case into the other man's gun, and that
too before any of the other men thought of looking into
the gun."
Rintoul, in his perplexity, continued to stare at the
green-shaded lamp with unseeing eyes. Characteristically
his mind was concentrating on the weak points in the
case against Cresswell. But the sergeant was satisfied.
He knew his chief; it was a sure thing that the affair
would now be probed to the bottom.
The fact that Cresswell had not been able to monkey
with the gun did not trouble him at all. Several quite
little, but unforeseen, accidents might have baulked the
man. He might easily have dropped his spent cartridge,
and it wouldn't be so easy to find another. For there
had been no shooting since Joliffe had heard the fatal
shot. And Cresswell, supposing he only discovered the
loss of his essential empty cartridge at the critical mo-
ment when the others were bending over the wounded
man, could hardly then fire off his own gun to provide
himself with another. Anyhow, if that wasn't what had
happened it was some other small mischance.
"I suppose, sir, you'll want to see some of these gentle-
men yourself," he suggested, getting ready to leave the
room.
Rintoul relaxed.
"Yes, of course," adding, after a glance at the clock,


36 THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
"the morning will do. By then we may have a statement
from Mr. Brent."
"Very good, sir."
"Mr. Toplis first, I think. But you'd better get off
home now. I can fix up the time with Munro, and can
perhaps learn what chance there is of a statement from
Brent." He took a step towards the table and picked up
his 'phone receiver. Cameron intervened.
"Not like that, sir."
The tone arrested Rintoul. Sergeant Cameron was
very much in earnest.
"For one thing, sir, Dr. Macfarlane gave him a
sleeping draught so there will be no statement till he
wakes in the morning. For another, a call will bring
Munro downstairs to the 'phone, which is a long way
from Mr. Brent's bedroom, and it's—it's very inadvisable
he should leave that room for a single moment."
Rintoul, receiver in hand, stared at the sergeant.
After a moment he gently replaced the instrument.
"I see," he said. "I see. What a suspicious fellow
you are, Cameron."
"Don't take any risks, sir," the sergeant pleaded.
"You aren't, if you're keeping poor Munro awake all
night to take a statement from a man who won't wake till
morning."
"I'm proposing to go up there myself now to relieve
Munro, sir, if it's all right," Cameron replied.
"But, man, what are you afraid of?" Rintoul de-
manded.
Before answering Sergeant Cameron let the elastic
band of his notebook go off with a snap.
"Just this, sir," he said. "I'm afraid, I'm very much
afraid that Mr. Brent, when he turned, might have seen
who was behind him before he was hit."


CHAPTER III
THE RED-HEADED YOUNG MAN
Sergeant Cameron left the police station after some
further talk with his chief, and mounting his bicycle set
off in the direction of Arrochmore. It was a clear, calm
night, with the road along the loch now empty of traffic.
For two miles he spun along with Loch Linnhe on one
side, its dark waters merging into the black Ardgour hills
beyond. Except for the lights of a small cargo steamer,
evidently heading for Oban, he seemed to have the world
to himself.
Strongly convinced as the sergeant was upon those
points in the case about which his superior seemed doubt-
ful, he was yet a little nervous as to whether sufficient
evidence would ever be got to establish any one's guilt.
Possibly this uneasy feeling may have been reinforced by
the loneliness of the road. Had Cameron found Super-
intendent Rintoul rising more spontaneously to the facts
placed before him, the sergeant would have felt more con-
fidence. As it was, he felt for the moment as much alone
in the case as he was on the road; and, if he did not admit
it to himself, it is likely that this absence of a whole-
hearted backing by his superior left him somewhat
nervous also of Mr. Willoughby.
The shooting tenant of Arrochmore was known well
enough to him by sight. A masterful-looking man he was,
to see sitting back at his ease in the lordly looking car as
it swept through the streets of the little town. Once
only, and that quite recently in the matter of Sam Hag-
gerty's arrest, had Sergeant Cameron come into personal
contact with Mr. Willoughby, and his experiences then
did not belie the impression of masterfulness already
37


THE RED-HEADED YOUNG MAN
39
"Oh, he's not going to die anyway, though he won't
play the piano yet awhile. We've moved him over to
the other house, where he'll be quieter." Macfarlane
sniffed. "And leave the house party free to be as noisy
as they wish."
"You mean to Duchray?" the sergeant said.
"Yes; he'll be all right there. But he won't be able to
tell you anything about that accident till the morning."
"So I understand, sir." Cameron paused.
The doctor pulled his hat forward.
"I've taken care of that," he snapped.
"You—think he'll be able to tell us something then,
sir?"
It was the doctor's turn to hesitate. After a puff or
two he took his hands from the wheel and, removing his
pipe, bent over the side of his car.
"I doubt," he said quietly, "if he'll be able to tell you
much more than I can tell you now."
Cameron looked up alertly, stimulated by the doctor's
confidential tone. "And what might that be, sir?" he
inquired.
"Just this, sergeant—that young fellow didn't shoot
himself."
Cameron did not seem to be as much surprised as the
doctor expected.
"You don't think it was an accident then? You will
say so to Superintendent Rintoul?"
"Of course it was an accident, but not one Brent him-
self made." He bent a little nearer. "I have no doubt
it was one of his own pals who shot him without know-
ing what he had done. They all think Mr. Brent tripped
in the heather and fell; but my belief is that is what
one of the others did, only he's too ashamed to admit he
was carrying a gun at full cock when he thinks that is


THE RED-HEADED YOUNG MAN
41
the shot supported rather than contradicted his own con-
victions about the case. For, quite clearly, the shot
could have been fired not only as the doctor assumed by
a man lower down the slope, but also by a man hiding
in the burn and aiming up at Brent with his gun thrust
through the gorse bushes from ground level. Cameron
had inspected just that point where the burn curved
around to within fifteen feet of the spot where Brent fell.
He had seen the bushes, and though he had inspected
them carefully for any trace of broken twigs, just as he
had searched the gravel bottom of the burn for foot-
prints, without results. Yet he had no doubt that, if
his suspicions had any basis whatever, that must have
been the position from which the shot was fired.
Cameron's thoughts while wheeling his bicycle up the
steep winding drive next turned to the possibility that
Brent's statement might supply them with conclusive in-
formation. Not that he considered this more than a
possibility. And the more he turned over in his mind the
things he already knew or suspected, the less he felt in-
clined to build on it. In his imagination he pictured
Cresswell selecting the scene and planning out the details
for his deed. If those details had been as artfully fixed
up as the scene of the crime had been perfectly chosen,
there was little chance that Brent had seen anything.
Cameron did not like it. He saw the gun pushed
through those bushes. He knew, as if he had seen them,
the precautions Cresswell would have taken against being
seen. Then a minute or two's wait till Brent came along.
The sergeant had taken note of the grassy pathway that
skirted the burn for a few yards; and he did not doubt
that Cresswell, noting it also, would count on Brent's
keeping to it just as far as it led in the direction he was
taking. And it did so long enough for his purpose. Then


THE RED-HEADED YOUNG MAN
43
foot of the hill with the beeches on one side and the open
space on the other, a footpath of crazy pavement served
to connect both houses, thus avoiding any need to go
down one arm of the fork and up the other.
Cameron halted when he reached the point where the
road forked. The doctor's news about the removal of his
patient to Duchray put him in a quandary. His superin-
tendent had decreed that Toplis should be invited to
police headquarters for an interview with himself next
morning; and it was almost certain that Toplis would be
at Arrochmore, while it was very certain that Munro
would be with the patient at Duchray. The sergeant,
however, did not hesitate more than a moment over his
choice. As he took the road to the right a half sardonic
smile of recollection made his mouth twitch. He knew
exactly why Rintoul wished Toplis to receive the message
that night. Out of past experience he knew the state of
mind induced by such a message. Almost invariably,
where the man had something to conceal, the invitation
shook his nerve, and the interval between his reception of
the message and his response to it was filled with doubts
as to how much the police knew.
Rintoul evidently hoped to give Toplis a wakeful night
in order to make him more squeezable in the morning.
And Cameron, recalling what he believed to be that
youth's fibbing exploit up on the moor, wasted no pity
on him.
Coming within sight of the house he saw, late as the
hour was, its lower windows luminous in the dark mass
of its shadowy outline. He set his bicycle carefully
against the wall and rang the bell. The man who an-
swered his summons was too well trained to exhibit any
outward surprise. Cameron, when the man departed in
search of Mr. Toplis, had leisure to take note of his sur-


44
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
roundings. The hall was large, square and lofty. Its
chief decorations, apart from the mounted stags' heads
usually found in Highland houses, were trophies collected
by former owners of the estates. The portraits of the
present impoverished owner's ancestors hung around the
walls, and from the trophies surrounding each a good
part of their biographies might have been written. There
was, for instance, the Sir Ewan Mackintosh who fell at
Culloden, below whose portrait hung his pistols and clay-
more. Farther along the line the boyish face of Ensign
Alan Mackintosh, by Raeburn, from which no money had
been able to tempt the present owner to part, looked as
if it had been painted yesterday. Yet he had fallen at
Waterloo.
Though the sergeant had been a soldier, had, in fact,
served in the same regiment, and, a hundred years later,
been wounded not so very far from where this young lad
had been killed, it was another portrait on which his eye
lingered. On the walls around it were no trophies of
death, no Highland claymores or Indian tulwars, no tiger
skins nor tusks of African ivory. Yet for all that the man
with the proud, straight, thin-lipped mouth and hooded
eyes touched the sergeant's imagination most at this
moment. For he knew that this must be the famous
Mackintosh who, as Lord Duchray, had been Lord
Justice General. The scarlet and ermine robe told him as
much, and sitting up there in the high-back chair he
looked a judge from whom one could expect justice but
little mercy. Yet somehow, while he stood in the hall cap
in hand, the sight of that portrait put much more self-
confidence into the waiting sergeant. He felt as if he had
the stern old judge at his back in the business before him.
As Cameron followed the man into the small room
along the corridor, his thought was that for all the signs


THE RED-HEADED YOUNG MAN
45
of life about the place there was no need to remove Brent
to Duchray. The only sounds he heard in passing a half-
opened door were the murmur of low-pitched voices, and
the click of a billiard ball.
Toplis appeared a little surprised as he entered, and
after his nod of recognition gazed questioningly at his
visitor.
"You wanted to see me?" he said.
The sergeant turned his cap in his hand. "Yes, sir.
The superintendent has sent me with a message."
"To me?" the red-headed young man asked, his eyes
dilating somewhat.
"To you certainly," Cameron said. "He would like to
see you at the office to-morrow at ten, if that will be
convenient to you."
"What about?" the other asked sharply.
Cameron slowly rotated his peaked cap in the reverse
direction, hesitating.
"Well, sir," he said, looking up from his cap, "that
must be a matter between you and the superintendent.
Will the hour be convenient, sir?"
The red-headed youth considered for a moment, but
whether his thought was on the hour of the interview or
its nature, the sergeant could not guess.
"Oh, yes," he said, after a moment. "I suppose I'd
better come."
Cameron was secretly delighted to see the young man's
nervousness grow.
"I say," he burst out, "you don't think he supposes
there's—there's anything wrong, do you?"
The sergeant might have allayed any foreboding by an
offhand reference to routine, and to the fact that the
police were bound to investigate the circumstances of all
such accidents. Instead he began to brush an imaginary


46
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
speck of dust from the shiny peak of his cap, while the
young man regarded him with anxiety.
"Well—" he said, and stopped.
"Mr. Willoughby is angry enough about the business
already, and I don't see why you pick me out for—what
is it you call it—interrogation? Why does he want me?"
"That I can't tell, sir. But, since you ask me I'd say
it's because you stood nearest, and the Chief will know
you can tell us most about it."
"But I've nothing to tell."
The sergeant made a vague gesture with his cap.
"I've already told you all I know about it."
Cameron looked up to meet the other's eyes.
"We're not so sure of that, sir," he said. "Don't you
be so sure. The Chief has a way of his own. His ques-
tions may bring out more than you would think you
know—or saw," he added, pointedly.
Mr. Toplis followed the sergeant from the room.
Passing along the corridor, Cameron, on coming paral-
lel to the staircase, heard a slight sound above his head.
In the glance he shot up he saw a girl bending over the
banisters. In one hasty glance he took in the impression
of a sharp pair of dark eyes, a cloak of some dark
material thrown over a white dress, and peeping through
the banisters a pair of silver slippers. The brooding
Mr. Toplis, however, did not seem to be conscious of her
presence. Cameron heard a whisper behind him.
"Toppy," she breathed. "Toppy!"
Mr. Toplis pulled up. The sergeant slackened his pace
towards the door.
"Hallo, Brenda," he heard the other reply.
"What—what's he doing here?"
If any reply was made the sergeant did not catch it.
But Toplis did not see him out. At the door the sergeant


THE RED-HEADED YOUNG MAN
47
turned. The girl had come down and was standing on
the lowest step, her face visible above Mr. Toplis's back.
She was listening to something he was telling her. Then
Mr. Toplis turned, made a gesture with his hand, and the
sergeant bowed his leave-taking. Once outside he rode
hard for the other house.


CHAPTER IV
NIGHT
Little Ducheay, as it was called, was only a small house
compared with Arrochmore. Built originally by Sir
George Mackintosh who became Lord Justice General, it
had been added to several times by his heirs, so that the
small white cottage which Hanging George—as they
nicknamed him—was said to have built as a place of
refuge where he could be undisturbed when considering
his judgments, no longer deserved its diminutive title.
The house was in darkness when Cameron approached.
Stepping on to the lawn he noticed a window open at the
bottom and went up to inspect it. Thrusting his head
inside, he could see enough to tell him that this was some
kind of sitting-room; but nothing to tell him whether
the window had been left open by negligence or design.
Round the eastern end of the house he found what he
sought: a lighted window on the second floor. Standing
back, he sounded the bell of his cycle once or twice
gently. And then, returning to the door, waited till it
was opened by Constable Munro. The young officer
seemed mightily glad to see him.
"How is he doing?" the sergeant asked.
Munro yawned heavily.
"Fine. Sound asleep. Just what I'd like to be myself."
Cameron leant his bicycle against the wall and, taking
Munro's arm, led him along the lawn to the open window.
"See that?" he said.
Munro seemed surprised.
"Does it matter?" he asked. "It's a sort of study;
there's nothing but books in there."
Cameron thought he was being oversuspicious.
48


NIGHT
49
"All right," he said. "Now tell me just who is in the
house."
"There's only one that counts for much—the old lady."
"Who is she?" Cameron inquired.
"His mother. She's a sharp one. Can't walk, but she
can talk. Wheels herself about in a chair."
"I see. And the others who don't count?"
"Well, there's the nurse, a little thing from the Cot-
tage Hospital, you know; and there's Dr. Frossard, and
a Mr. Bray who is tutor to young Master Willoughby,
who—"
"One moment. Is this Dr. Frossard attending to Mr.
Brent?"
"Oh, no, he's some other kind of a doctor. Beyond the
maids that's all." Munro once more yawned heavily.
"There were others, but they were all shifted to the big
house to keep this place quiet."
Cameron nodded.
"All right. You can go home now. Take my bicycle."
But when Munro was about to mount, Cameron
stopped him.
"That door," he said, with a backward throw of his
thumb, "when you opened it just now I didn't hear you
draw the bolts."
Munro, his foot on the step, looked back.
"I had to draw them both, though," he said, "and it
was me who shot them back when Dr. Macfarlane left.
The old lady told me to."
Sergeant Cameron, after watching Munro disappear,
entered the house. He, too, in his turn, shot the two bolts
behind the big door and then, slipping into the room on
the right, shut down the open window and fastened the
catch.
Returning to the hall, he mounted the stairs and was


THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
passing along a corridor towards what he judged to be
Brent's room when a door on the right opened and he
saw a wheeled chair turning out to come in his direction.
"What!" Mrs. Brent said, as soon as he approached.
"Not another of you!"
Cameron explained he had only come to relieve his
subordinate, and the old lady then waved him ahead,
following him into the room at the end of the passage.
As Cameron passed the half-opened door of the room
from which she had emerged, he had a glimpse of the bed,
and the wounded man's face, and a nurse in uniform
seated beside the bed, watching.
"Sorry to bother you, madam," Cameron said, as soon
as Mrs. Brent, having switched on the light as she passed,
brought her chair to a standstill. "But we must know
just how such accidents happen, and that is why we have
to stand by like this."
"Well," she said, "that is why I am standing by myself
like this."
"I hope you didn't find the officer in the way?" the
sergeant suggested.
"Indeed, no. I thought he might be very useful," she
replied heartily.
Cameron pricked up his ears, hearing this. Did she
too anticipate danger that night?
"Be useful?" he repeated encouragingly.
"Why, yes," she replied. "My son is no light weight,
and the nurse is small, and you see what I am. I can
move very little except my hands, these days."
Cameron noticed, however, that her eyes kept moving
from himself to the passage which was visible through the
door she had left open.
Mrs. Brent seemed rather old to be the mother of the
son Cameron remembered. But the marks of character


NIGHT
were written very definitely on the mother's face, from
the tight, thin-lipped mouth and the sharply cut nose to
the alert eyes whose dark colour and brightness made a
marked contrast to the suggestion of age conveyed by the
pallor and texture of her skin. There was decision too,
as well as unexpected physical power in the way she
propelled and controlled her chair.
"You see," she continued, "my boy, unlike some of
those others, is expert in the handling of a gun. He's
very clever with his hands; that comes of being a pianist,
of course."
Something the doctor had said which at the time had
puzzled Cameron, was now explained.
"Oh—he plays the piano then?" he said.
"Plays the piano! He's a genius," she said, with in-
tense pride. "That fool of a nurse thought it was all
right that he had escaped facial disfigurement. But I'll
not be satisfied till I know his left arm hasn't been crip-
pled permanently. Those young fools didn't think he
could be a good shot and a fine pianist as well. But I
know he's more likely to have been shot by them than
to have shot himself."
Cameron's lifted eyebrows expressed incredulity.
"Really, madam," he protested, "that is a serious
thing to say, unless you have some evidence to support
it," he added hopefully.
She waved a hand.
"Don't be stupid, man," she cried imperiously. "I
mean just what I say, that it would be easier to believe
any one of those young fools mishandled a gun rather
than Eric."
"A very careful young gentleman, is he?" the sergeant
agreed, flustered by her tone.
"Careful? I hope so. I brought him up to be. Even


THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
as a child Eric never played with matches, or cut him-
self with a knife, or swallowed plum stones or anything
that wasn't quite nice."
"Still," the sergeant ventured, "I suppose later on he—
he had his little quarrels with other boys."
"Oh, he was no milksop, of course; he knew even at
school how to stand up for himself."
The sergeant began to feel astute.
"And still does, I expect," he suggested knowingly.
But she turned on him almost fiercely. Cameron
could not tell whether he had touched a raw spot, or if
she had suddenly repented this intimate discussion of
her son with a mere sergeant of police.
"What can you know about him?" she said. "He has
never talked to you."
Cameron sat back.
"Oh, no, indeed, madam; I've only heard what his
friends had to say about him."
"His friends? What friends?" she demanded.
"Mr. Cresswell and the others. It was easy to see
what they thought of him from their—well—sorrow over
the accident—especially Mr. Cresswell," he added un-
truthfully. And the lie was rewarded when he saw the
hard glitter that came to her eyes at the mention of
Cresswell's name. He marked too the whitening of
the knuckles of the hand nearest him, which gripped the
side of her chair.
"Mr. Cresswell—sorrow?" she sneered, in tones of con-
temptuous incredulity. Then one vigorous pull brought
the chair pirouetting round till she sat face to face with
the sergeant. She appeared on the point of letting her-
self go on the subject of Mr. Cresswell's sorrow. But
Cameron saw her put a check on her tongue, and instead,
even as she stared at him, she laughed—a harsh, mirth-


NIGHT
53
less laugh which ended as abruptly as it began.
"After all, you are a brave man," she said.
The sergeant pricked up his ears again. Was she now
about to tell him something?
"Brave?" he repeated.
She pointed to the ribbons on his tunic.
"You have served your country," she nodded. "I know
what these ribbons stand for. That is why I am talking
to you like this; because, after all, you are a man who
served your country."
"Oh, madam, I hope I still do that," Cameron said
pointedly. But if she understood the hint she did not
respond to it. Whether she had been on the point of
taking him into her confidence, he could not tell. He was
not even sure she had anything to tell him. If she had,
the impulse to speak it had now gone. She was eyeing
him quizzically.
"The nurse was saying I ought to lie down for a little,"
she said. "But I couldn't trust her to keep awake. I
wonder—" She paused.
"Yes?"
"Well, it would be merely serving me, not the nation,
I suppose. Still, if you could keep an eye on her while I
lie down—just step to the door from time to time, I
mean, to make sure Eric isn't awake and she asleep—"


CHAPTER V
MORNING
But it was not Cameron who awakened the nurse: it was
the nurse who awakened Cameron. Soon after six she
had slipped into the room and, finding him asleep with
his head perched on the back of his chair, had startled
him with a touch on the shoulder and the whispered
news that the young man had himself just awakened.
The sergeant, who had cast an eye into the sickroom
every half-hour since Mrs. Brent left him, had now been
asleep for a matter of some minutes only. He leapt to
life, feeling as guilty as any sentry caught napping at
his post. But the girl was already hurrying off to call
Mrs. Brent.
The young man's eyes were focused on the ceiling when
Sergeant Cameron stooped over him.
"Feeling better?" he asked.
Brent fixedly examined the sergeant for quite a time.
"Now who the hell are you?" he at last inquired in a
tone of peevish perplexity. "Go away. I don't like you."
Cameron took the hand that waved him away and felt
the pulse. Even as he counted it came to his mind that
the last time he had so held another hand was also early
on a summer morning, kneeling behind that shattered
wall outside La Boiselle. But there was much more
"kick" in this pulse. Cameron replaced the hand on the
coverlet as the nurse appeared at the other side of the
bed.
"Feeling better?" she asked brightly, smiling down at
him.
"My God, what's all this?" he sighed, and then shut
his eyes as if to puzzle out the answer for himself.
54


MORNING
55
The nurse glided over to prepare some sort of drink.
While she was holding it to his lips Mrs. Brent entered
in her chair. Brent finished off the drink with another
deep sigh—this time of content. Then the chair glided
round the foot of the bed, and Mrs. Brent laid her hand
on his right shoulder.
"Eric," she said gently. "Eric, it's me, your mother."
"You're pinching my arm," he said querulously.
She took away her hand.
"The other arm," he said.
"No, no. You're hurt, you know. Don't you remem-
ber? Up on the moor. You were shooting—all of you
together."
Cameron saw the muscles of the man's face stiffen and
something like light come to the eyes. His hand went to
his pocket for his notebook. The nurse began to flutter,
like a nervous, protective hen. Even Cameron, keen as
he was for the facts, doubted whether Brent was yet in a
fit condition to make a statement. But the mother ap-
peared to be impelled by some force she could not resist.
"You were shooting—all of you together," she re-
peated. "What happened?"
Brent moved a little, then frowned and shook his head.
"I don't know," he said. "What did happen?"
Mrs. Brent leaned forward and whispered: "You were
walking along—on the slope of the moor, with your gun;
it was very misty."
The sergeant saw the young man's eyes open widely.
"Yes," he breathed. "Yes, I remember. I was walk-
ing along. Let me see. . . . Yes, I had just passed the
burn. I'd been expecting to put up something from the
bushes at its edge—" He stopped, his forehead again
wrinkling into a frown in an effort to remember. "No,
nothing got up. ... So I put my gun on my arm again."


56
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
Brent closed his eyes and stopped as if he had reached
the end of his story. The sergeant slipped round the bed
and whispered something to the woman.
"Over the left arm, wasn't it, Eric?" she said softly.
"Yes, in the crook of my left arm, of course; that's
where you carry it, then something hit it."
"Hit it? What hit it?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"Don't know. Something did. ... At least I think
it did."
Cameron bent down to her again to suggest a question.
"Something hit it when you turned round to look back
at the bushes beside the burn."
After a moment he shook his head.
"No," he said.
"You did turn round, didn't you?" she persisted.
"Did I? I don't remember."
Cameron could endure the uncertainty no longer. Be-
fore he knew it he heard his own voice prompting Brent's
mind.
"When you turned you saw somebody or something,"
he said.
The intrusion of the new voice, however, disturbed
Brent and destroyed the sergeant's chance of hearing
more. Brent, without opening his eyes, said:
"Don't know who you all are. Why can't you leave
me alone?"
That brought the nurse to the front. She actually
pulled Cameron away.
"Not any more till the doctor comes, please. I take
no more responsibility."
"When's that?" Cameron asked.
"About ten," she replied, "unless he is sent for."
The sergeant seemed determined to send for the doctor


MORNING
57
at once, but the nurse pointed to her patient, and Cam-
eron saw he was asleep already. So there was nothing
for it but to wait. He slept himself, in the next room,
till Macfarlane awakened him.
"They tell me," said the doctor, "you have been cate-
chizing my patient."
"It was very important, sir."
"Oh, so I suspect, sergeant, but it is very important
to me that he should not die on my hands. However, he's
much better now." He nodded towards the other room.
"You can try him again. I'll be there to stop you if
necessary."
The sergeant found the young man in a distinctly
better condition after his second sleep. He no longer
looked dazed with the drug. Mrs. Brent sat by him in
her wheel-chair.
"He's much better," she said. "Perhaps now he'll be
able to tell us all about it."
Brent lay with his cheek on the pillow.
"That's what I want you to do," he said.
Cameron drew up a chair and took out his notebook.
Remembering the doctor's warning, he went straight to
the point.
"When you stopped and turned round, sir, did you see
anybody or anything?"
"Turned round?" Brent repeated.
"Yes. You heard something, didn't you, that made
you turn? What did you see?"
"But I didn't turn."
"Just after you had passed the bushes," Cameron said
persuasively.
Brent here revealed impatience.
"Who says I turned?" he cried. "I tell you I didn't
stop or turn. I remember quite well passing those


6o
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
to subside into a chair while his superior still stood, he
was feeling more surprise than fatigue.
"About me?" he repeated.
"Ye-s," Rintoul almost drawled. "I've been won-
dering what you've been reading lately."
"Reading, sir?" Cameron did not think he had heard
aright.
"Yes—in your off-time."
Although astonished at such a question at such a
moment, the sergeant was gratified by his chief's interest
in his off-time hobbies.
"Well, sir, at the moment I'm about half-way through
Boswell's Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson."
"Really? Boswell's Johnson, eh? You surprise me."
"Why, sir?"
"Oh, nothing. I just thought you must have started
reading detective stories. You've lately been developing
such a fantastic imagination."
Sergeant Cameron visibly wilted under this accusation.
While the chief toyed with his watch-chain, looking down
at him, he stared with unseeing eyes at the gun and
waterproof lying on the table between them.
"This means you think there's nothing in this case?"
he said at length.
"Nothing against Mr. Cresswell or any of the Arroch-
more people. Crime, in general, Cameron, is confined to
no one class of society, but every class has its own type
of crime. Take this youth, Toplis, as an example. He
admitted he had lied. He did see, as you believed, Brent
fall. More than that, he had caught a glimpse of Cress-
well out of his position in the line a few minutes before
the shot was fired. But he was quite sure if Cresswell
fired that shot Cresswell was unaware of what he had
done. You see? This young man is ready to conceal


MORNING
61
evidence which might involve a friend. That is to say,
he makes himself an accessory after the fact. But a crime
of violence is usually the work of the unintelligent or
degraded who have not much to lose; and it is best in all
such crimes to look first in that quarter for the perpe-
trators."
The sergeant pondered the lecture for a few moments.
"This man was not shot by his own gun," he asserted.
Rintoul, having delivered his lecture, took the chair at
the opposite side of the table.
"I'm not saying he was shot by his own gun. I am
only saying he was not shot by Mr. Cresswell's. We'd
better make this quite clear before we go any further."
Rintoul opened a drawer at his left hand and extracted
an envelope which he handed to the sergeant. "These
were extracted from Brent's wounds by Dr. Macfarlane,"
he said. "Tell me what you make of them."
Cameron emptied the leaden pellets into the palm of
his hand and examined them.
"Number five, I should say, sir," he said, wondering
if there was something else he ought to have had to say
about them.
Rintoul nodded.
"What number were the Arrochmore party using yes-
terday?"
"I didn't open the cartridge to see," the sergeant
admitted.
"If you had you would have found they were loaded
with number six shot. I made certain of that this morn-
ing when I sent for the gamekeeper, Murdoch. The
second fact now cleared up is still more conclusive: it
relates to that gun."
Cameron stared at the gun again.
Rintoul observed the look.


6a
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
"Yes. All the inferences you drew from the gun, ser-
geant, go for nothing. You see, the gun you took away
and looked into was not Brent's, but Cresswell's."
Cameron stared, bewildered.
"Oh, it wasn't your mistake; no, sergeant, it was
Cresswell's. He, as you know, was the only one of the
party who carried his gun to the place where Brent fell.
He put down his gun to help in carrying Brent. Some
one else, Joliffe, it appears, took both guns to the spot to
which Brent had been carried. Afterwards when you had
arrived on the scene, Cresswell simply picked up the
wrong gun. You merely assumed that the gun he left
must be Brent's, and, quite naturally, on finding two
unspent cartridges in the breech, you jumped to erroneous
conclusions. Anyway, if you look at that weapon there
you will find on the butt-plate the initials E. B."
Cameron stood up and lifted the gun. He was aware
that the gun he had carried from the moor did not have
any initials engraved anywhere on it. Nevertheless, he
scrutinized this one carefully till he found what he
sought. For there came to his mind something Brent had
said early that morning, before the nurse had intervened
to forbid further questioning. The young man had
spoken then in a semi-conscious condition about some-
thing hitting his gun, though later on he appeared to have
forgotten that anything did so. But Cameron soon dis-
covered from his examination of the barrel that Brent's
first statement was correct. Something had hit the gun;
some twelve inches above the stock there were marks
which certainly could have been made on the barrel by
deflected pellets.
"You needn't waste time over that weapon, sergeant,"
Rintoul said dryly. "Both Mr. Willoughby and Mr.
Toplis vouched for the facts."


MORNING
63
"Well, sir, as far as that goes, this gun seems to cor-
roborate what they say." The sergeant, taking the gun
round to Rintoul, told him what Brent had said, and
pointed out the slight indentations on the blue-black
barrel. Rintoul, taking the weapon, placed it in the
crook of his left arm, with his right hand holding the
butt, that being the position in which Brent said he had
been carrying the weapon. It then became obvious that
any number five shot deflected at the points visible on
the barrel, could have entered Brent's body in an upward
direction just under the shoulder. Cameron pointed out
the angle of deflection.
"Lucky for him," he said. "But for that, these shots
would have reached his heart."
Rintoul nodded and laid down the gun.
"As they were meant to do," he said.
Cameron had now no doubt that he had been on the
wrong track in regard to Mr. Cresswell. True, he had
not seen into Cresswell's gun and could make no infer-
ence one way or the other from what he found in the
young man's weapon. But, after all, the same held true
of all the other members of the shooting party. Anyway,
it seemed to be now established that they must look else-
where. Still, Brent had been found lying on his back,
though he himself denied that he had either stopped or
turned. He put this difficulty to Rintoul.
"Yes," said Rintoul. "I spoke to Dr. Macfarlane
about that when he came in last night to bring me the
shot. He said a man hit like that, possibly at the mo-
ment when he was on one foot, might fall in any attitude
or position."
Few better than Sergeant Cameron knew how right the
doctor was in making that assertion; it was strange in-
deed that he could have forgotten. And then, while he


64
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
was seeing as in a vision figures lying on the earth in a
bewildering variety of attitudes, Rintoul drew him back
to actuality by a tap on the table.
"You're asking yourself where we are to look now,"
he said. "That white Burberry there, it gives us the
essential clue."
This brought the sergeant to his senses. "The water-
proof?" he said, mystified.
"Exactly," said Rintoul. "It's a hint I derived just
now from Mr. Willoughby himself. That waterproof,
you see, is his. Brent borrowed it. Whoever fired at
Brent yesterday thought he was aiming at Mr. Wil-
loughby. Perhaps you have a notion who that would be,"
he concluded.
"Some of Sam Haggerty's friends?" the sergeant sug-
gested.
Down came the clenched fist of the superintendent on
the table.
"That's more like it," he cried. "Now, Sergeant Cam-
eron, you've got a fair start. Get on with it."


CHAPTER VI
SERGEANT CAMERON ON THE TRAIL
Superintendent Rintoul, however, did his sergeant full
justice on what was, after all, the important point in the
case: he did not forget, then or afterwards, that but for
Cameron this attempted murder might have been set
down as an accident.
Cameron himself at once switched over his activities to
the new group of suspects. He had no doubt whatever
that the attempted murder was the work of Haggerty's
friends; and he saw for the first time a motive behind
the crime. These navvies, a very mixed lot drawn from
all quarters and set down in strange surroundings, devel-
oped among themselves a feeling of kinship as strong as
had ever been held by any of the clans through whose
territory they were driving their road. And Haggerty's
conviction and sentence aroused strong feeling, especially
against Mr. Willoughby. Indeed, the country people
themselves, as Cameron knew, sided much more with the
poacher than with the rich tenant.
There were two points which now impressed the ser-
geant and made him feel certain that he was on the
right trail. He had no doubt that the marks he had
himself discovered on Brent's gun had been made by
shots fired at him from somewhere below the point at
which he fell. Cameron recalled how Brent, weak as he
was, strenuously denied that he had stopped or turned
round to^look at anything. This could only mean, there-
fore, that he had been shot by some one lurking down by
the burn, at the very bottom of the slope where the mist
was thickest. The other point which Cameron found
conclusive was that connected with the white waterproof;
65


66
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
whoever fired that shot thought he was firing at Mr.
Willoughby. For Cameron remembered a detail con-
nected with the poaching case which he saw might be
fruitful in immediate results.
Haggerty had been caught in Keppoch Wood by Mr.
Willoughby himself. But for Mr. Willoughby, in fact, he
would have got clear away. Murdoch, the gamekeeper,
had been some distance behind Mr. Willoughby. There
was that charge against Haggerty of shooting at him,
and Mr. Willoughby had been unable to swear whether
the shot came from the front or the rear. But Haggerty
had no gun, and as the most careful search had failed to
discover one, the Court had disallowed the charge of
shooting with intent. Still, Haggerty might have had a
gun, although it had not been found. If so, Cameron
knew it must have been hidden in no ordinary place of
concealment.
After some further hard thinking, and more talk with
Munro, the sergeant perceived that a cunning rogue like
Haggerty would contrive a cunning cache for his gun.
Haggerty was not the man to be seen carrying a gun to
and from the moor when he could plant it in a safe place,
and after wandering about weaponless, pick it up when
he knew the coast was clear. What followed was not
hard to guess. Since his arrest Haggerty, of course, had
been unable to get back to his weapon; but once sentence
was pronounced on him he had been allowed to see such
of his friends as were concerned in settling his affairs.
He had told them where to find his gun, and they had
prudently chosen that misty day on which to retrieve it.
It was a day on which nobody would expect to find any
shooters out. But probably at the moment when the
man sent for the gun was bringing it away these five
young fools were crossing the slope above. The man with


SERGEANT CAMERON ON THE TRAIL 67
the gun probably saw only the one nearest him at the
end of the line, and mistaking him for Mr. Willoughby,
the cause of all the trouble, crept near enough to have a
shot at him, and afterwards slipped away safely enough
in the thick mist.
Acting on this theory as to the course of events, Cam-
eron that afternoon sent off Munro on his motor-cycle to
interview the landlord of the inn at Keppoch. Munro
carried precise instructions about the questions he was
to put to Macdonald, the landlord. Cameron himself
a little later left for Arrochmore. He had certain new
questions he wished to put to Mr. Toplis, and he had no
doubt that this time Mr. Toplis would be frank in his
replies. At any rate, he himself, now that he had got
a grip on the facts, would no longer be questioning him
in the dark.
When Cameron reached the fork in the drive he saw
the man he sought engrossed in a game of tennis on the
court nearest him. It seemed an exciting single with Mr.
Harwood, for the onlookers had deserted the doubles
game on the farther court. At first nobody noticed the
police officer standing on the road beside his bicycle. It
was not, indeed, until the game had ended in Harwood's
victory, and while Toplis was smoothing down his shock
of red hair, that some one drew attention to Cameron's
presence.
"Toppy, some one waiting for you," a girl called out,
with a wave of her hand in Cameron's direction.
The titter which followed showed the sergeant that
few of them were aware of the real seriousness of yester-
day's happenings. And Toplis, turning round while mop-
ping his overheated face, regarded the sergeant without
surprise, just as he took Cameron's almost imperceptible
nod without anxiety.


68
THE GROUSE MOOS MURDER
As soon as another game got under way he joined
Cameron on the road.
"I'm hoping you're going to help us now, sir," Cameron
said.
"Instead of hindering, eh?" Toplis nodded.
"Well, sir," Cameron said, as they walked away, "it's
always best to tell what you know—best for the innocent,
I mean. You thought you were acting in Mr. Cresswell's
interests. Actually you put him under suspicion. It's
always best to trust the police."
"Yes, yes, of course," the red-head nodded. "I see
that now."
"Good," said Cameron curtly. "Then you won't hold
us up any more. Now we can get on with it. My first
question is—just try to remember as well as you can—do
you remember where you were looking when you heard
the shot?"
"That's easy. I had been looking all round to see what
the other fellows were going to do when we got into that
mist, and I saw Mr. Brent at the very moment, saw him
go down, in fact."
"Did you happen to notice which way he was looking?"
"Straight ahead towards those trees where we carried
him afterwards."
"When had you seen Mr. Cresswell last?"
"A few minutes before the shot was fired. He had got
out of position, you know; that's what made me keep
looking around. I thought it high time we dropped it."
"I see."
There was a pause. The sergeant looked thoughtful
and Mr. Toplis made a swing or two with his racquet at
an imaginary ball.
"Mr. Toplis?"
"Yes?"


SERGEANT CAMERON ON THE TRAIL 69
"What made you think it was Mr. Cresswell who fired
the shot?"
The racquet arrested itself.
"Well, the—there wasn't anybody else there to do it.
I knew it must be one of us; for I knew / hadn't fired,
and I saw, of course, that Brent hadn't."
"Why not Mr. Harwood or even Mr. Joliffe?"
"Well, Harwood's too careful, and Joliffe was too far
away; besides, I had just seen Phil rather out of posi-
tion."
"You're quite sure it was Mr. Cresswell you saw?"
Mr. Toplis seemed amazed.
"Well, I made sure it was. There wasn't any one else
for it to be." He turned suddenly on Cameron. "There
must have been some one else there, of course."
Cameron agreed to this.
"I was just wondering which of the two you saw," he
said. "If this other man was out for a bit of poaching,
at a time when he might very well believe he had the
moor to himself, we want to get him, even though he shot
Mr. Brent by accident."
Mr. Toplis almost jumped.
"You don't surely think he may have done it delib-
erately?" he cried.
"Oh, no, sir, nobody thinks he meant to kill Mr.
Brent," Cameron said with entire conviction. It was just
as well, the sergeant thought, to say nothing about the
inference Rintoul had drawn from the white waterproof.
Any talk in Arrochmore about an attempt on Mr. Wil-
loughby's life would almost certainly be overheard by
some of the staff, and from them could easily percolate,
via some pub, down to some of Haggerty's friends.
"Now," Cameron resumed, "I was just wondering if it
wasn't the other man you mistook for Mr. Cresswell."


70
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
Toplis shook his head.
"No, it was Cresswell right enough," he said. Then he
looked up. "But Cresswell may have seen that other
man."
"That's what I was thinking. Maybe you could get
Mr. Cresswell to see me."
Toplis turned to regard the distant figures on the
tennis lawn.
"Tell you what," he said. "You go over to that seat
and I'll send him along as soon as he's free."
When Toplis had gone, Cameron crossed to the seat
he had indicated with a sweep of his racquet. On this
seat, which stood on the verge of the path backed by the
beeches, Cameron waited for Cresswell. Cresswell let
him wait for some time, but when the sergeant saw the
young man coming along the path he guessed from his
walk that the delay was not of his own making. A very
taking fellow, he seemed, the flannels appearing to make
his stride longer than it actually was.
"You want to see me, sergeant?" he said, with a pur-
poseful nod as Cameron rose. He listened carefully
while the sergeant explained. When he had finished
Cresswell said, putting up a foot on the seat where he
had been sitting:
"Well, as a matter of fact, I was behind Mr. Brent
just before he was hit; but I'm afraid I can't help you.
I didn't see any one else."
Cameron was disappointed.
"You couldn't perhaps say from what direction the
shot came?" he suggested.
"No—at least not beyond being sure that it came from
Brent's direction. You see," he added, "I had turned
away up again as soon as I saw Brent, and assumed that
he himself had fired the shot."
Cameron hesitated.


SERGEANT CAMERON ON THE TRAIL
71
"Would you mind telling me, sir, why you had dropped
behind?"
Cresswell in his turn hesitated.
"Well," he said, "to be quite candid, sergeant, when
we walked into that mist I got rather panicky about
Brent."
"Panicky?" Cameron echoed.
"Yes. I was frightened I might get in front of him;
he's such a damned bad shot."
Cameron was startled.
"But," he said, "I'm told he was an expert with a gun."
Cresswell stared. "Who told you that?" he inquired
incredulously.
"His mother."
Cresswell relaxed into his former easy attitude.
"Oh, his mother!" he laughed. "I don't suppose she's
ever shot alongside him."
Cresswell withdrew his foot from the seat and began
gently slapping his leg with his racquet.
"Some poacher did it, I suppose," he said. "I wish I
could help you to get him."
At that moment Cameron observed Mr. Willoughby
with a girl at his side, coming along the path from the
direction of the tennis courts. Cresswell, turning to go,
also saw them.
"Mr. Willoughby's greatly upset about this," he said.
"At first I fancy he thought one of us had shot his pet."
From this outburst Cameron divined that if Brent was
a pet to Willoughby, he was something very different to
Mr. Cresswell.
Cameron, in the act of wheeling his bicycle across the
path, was stopped by a gesture from Mr. Willoughby
who, leaving Cresswell and the girl in talk, came towards
him. .
"Want to have a word with you," he said, "about this


72
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
unfortunate affair. I suppose you're getting on the track
of it?"
"Well, sir, we still need all the help we can get,"
Cameron replied.
Mr. Willoughby sat down and pulled out his cigarette
case.
"I might save you from getting on the wrong track,"
he remarked, applying a match to the gold-tipped ciga-
rette while Cameron stood, attentive. "You, I under-
stand, are inclined to believe that one of my young
people is responsible for the accident." He held up the
cigarette protestingly when Cameron was about to ex-
plain. "Oh, at first I thought so myself. But now I
know the responsibility only extends to taking a young
man like Mr. Brent out shooting on such a day in my
absence."
Sergeant Cameron could not forbear one comment.
"If he were such a bad shot, sir, surely the risk was
theirs more than his."
"Quite. But, sergeant, I am concerned for the safety
of all my guests; and you see what has come of it." He
looked along the path to where Mr. Cresswell was parting
from the girl. "My daughter is terribly upset." He said
nothing more until the girl had paused opposite the seat.
"Shall I go on, father?" she said, hesitating.
"Yes, dear. I'll be with you before the doctor is due."
In passing on she shot a swift glance at Cameron.
Miss Willoughby was not beautiful according to the ser-
geant's standards, but the face and the eyes especially
touched his imagination. As he put it to himself, she
looked like one who had just seen one ghost and was
afraid she might see another.
"Very upset, poor dear!" Mr. Willoughby murmured,
watching her go. "You see, she blames herself. The
other night while Mr. Brent was playing to us, she had


SERGEANT CAMERON ON THE TRAIL 73
some childish dispute with Mr. Harwood. Oh, about
nothing. She had laughed at Mr. Cresswell when it came
out that he did not know the difference between a con-
certo and a symphony, or something like that. These
young fellows are inclined to despise men who are musi-
cians and artists. Think all that sort of thing proper
for girls, but not for men, you know. Then, it appears,
Mr. Cresswell had some words with Mr. Brent—I think
it was Mr. Cresswell," he said thoughtfully. "Anyhow,
she backed Mr. Brent to bring in as big a bag as any of
them the next time they went to the moor. They had
rather laughed too, you know, when they saw the gun
his mother had bought him for his Arrochmore visit."
"Fair provoked him to go, sir?" Cameron commented.
Mr. Willoughby nodded as he threw away his cigarette.
"That's about it. Lord!" he said, rising, "and isn't
it strange how things fall out?" He laid his hand on the
sergeant's arm. "Just think, sergeant, if that poacher
who took a pot-shot at Mr. Brent had only known of
that quarrel between these young fellows, I'll bet he'd
have risked creeping up much closer to make quite cer-
tain."
Sergeant Cameron permitted himself a grim little
smile.
"If he had, sir—come up closer, I mean—he might have
seen who he was shooting at."
"The wrong bird, eh?" said Mr. Willoughby. "Well,
now you know all this, see that you go after the right
man."
As Mr. Willoughby followed his daughter towards
Duchray, Sergeant Cameron made off down the drive,
quite certain that, at last, he knew where to find his man.
He was grateful for the confidence Mr. Willoughby had
made him. He was glad he had remembered to warn him
against going out in that white waterproof.


CHAPTER VII
THE TWO NO. S CARTRIDGES
Superintendent Rintoul was disappointed to learn on
Cameron's return that he had been unable to get any
description of the suspect from Mr. Toplis. But the fact
that none of the shooters had got even so much as a
glimpse of the man left him unshaken. The conviction
that Brent had been shot by one of Haggerty's friends
from some point near the burn at the bottom of the
slope, was also shared by the sergeant himself. And when
Constable Munro returned from Keppoch and laid before
them the information obtained from the landlord of the
inn there, this conclusion seemed inevitable.
Rintoul's face visibly brightened as Munro reeled off
his story. Macdonald, the landlord of the inn, knew
Haggerty as a regular frequenter of the bar. He and his
friends had been coming to the inn for the past five
months, in fact, ever since their hut had been shifted
along the road to its present position about half a mile
from the inn. Haggerty and his pals attracted notice
because they seemed never to be without money for
drink. Macdonald had overheard much of their wild
talk when the place was quiet and they had the bar to
themselves, which was practically every day of the week
except pay-day.
"You've got their names?" Rintoul inquired.
Munro produced his notebook.
"Yes, sir. There are four. Joe Gallacher who, Mac-
donald says, speaks with a Glasgow accent; Ned Oak-
royd, some sort of Englishman, place of origin not known
to Macdonald."
"It's a Yorkshire name, anyway," Rintoul commented
74


THE TWO NO. 5 CARTRIDGES
75
as Munro seemed to boggle and hesitate over the next
name on his list.
"Hugh Cameron, a local man," he read out.
Rintoul looked up with a sudden grin.
"One of the clan, eh?" he said, looking at Cameron.
"And the last?"
"A man they call Big Brodie, cook to hut No. 22,
where they all live."
Rintoul laid down his pen.
"You were able, I suppose, to elicit something as to
the nature of the wild talk of which Macdonald spoke?"
"Well, sir, little that I gathered seemed to have any
connection with this case. They were all, Macdonald
said, very great boasters. Brodie had been to sea as a
ship's cook, Oakroyd is a discharged soldier, Gallacher
had been in the Irish troubles like Haggerty himself.
And they all boasted one against the other when in
drink."
"Even Cameron!" Rintoul interjected. "Well, proceed.
Did he hear any threats after Haggerty's arrest?"
"Not from them. There was a lot of wild talk among
the others about what they would do if they got a
chance. But Macdonald can't remember hearing any of
the four say anything."
"That proves nothing. If they meant revenge they
would hardly talk about it."
Munro looked up hopefully.
"Well, sir, Macdonald knew they had a gun. In fact,
he put two and two together from what he overheard at
different times, and he believes that it was through what
the gun brought them in that they were so flush with
money. They sold the game, he thinks, among the dif-
ferent huts."
"Did he know who owned the gun?" Rintoul asked.


76 THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
"He gathered it belonged to them all—they had formed
a sort of—"
"Syndicate," the superintendent suggested.
"They had all subscribed for it, anyway, and went
equal shares in the proceeds."
"Did he gather who—er—operated with the weapon?"
Rintoul inquired, his pen poised in his hand.
"They could all shoot except Brodie; at least they all
boasted about what they could do with a gun."
"Even Cameron!"
Munro thought this was going too far. But Rintoul
was a Lowlander; he would not understand how Ser-
geant Cameron would feel. The sergeant found his voice.
"I know about him," he said. "He used to be under-
keeper up at Kinloch till he got into some kind of trouble,
and took to work on the road."
Rintoul nodded appreciatively.
"An ex-gamekeeper, eh? Well, he'd make a useful
member of such a syndicate. Yes," he nodded, after
puckering his brow over the notes on the table before
him. "I think you've done quite well, Munro. The
next thing is to see if we can lay our hands on that gun,
and ascertain where these four men were—let me see—
between, say, four and six o'clock yesterday, when Mr.
Brent was shot."
Half an hour later Sergeant Cameron mounted behind
Munro, and with a search warrant in his pocket, was
speeding along the new road towards Keppoch. Hut 22
stood picturesquely on a bank by the side of the road
over-topped by pines, and backed by a dense under-
growth of bushes. It was not yet five o'clock, and the
men were still at work farther along the road. Munro
wheeled his bicycle up to the door at the end of the hut.
Cameron, after a formal tap, pushed the door open and


THE TWO NO. 5 CARTRIDGES
77
entered. There was no one inside. Along each wall
stood a row of beds, eleven on each side, and the sight
evoked the memory of a certain clearing hospital behind
Ypres, only things were tidier there, even amid the sur-
rounding ruin and destruction. The unmade beds, how-
ever, did not hinder their search for the gun. While
Munro took one side, the sergeant was busy on the other,
turning up each mattress in turn, and examining the floor
for any indication of a board that lifted.
Cameron had reached the second last bed when the
floor at his feet was darkened by a shadow. Glancing
up, he saw a huge face staring in at him through the
window. The sergeant knew he had never seen the man
before, for that huge white face with pendent jowls and
small pig-like eyes, was not one that could be forgotten.
As soon as he saw he was observed, the man angrily
brandished a long wooden spoon which he held in one
hand. Cameron went on with his work, and when he
looked up again the man had disappeared. But just
while he was helping Munro with the beds against the
other wall the door flung violently open, and the man
came up the room towards them, still grasping the long-
handled spoon. Both the officers knew this must be Big
Brodie. He certainly answered to the description, for
under his huge bulk the floor boards creaked at every
step.
"Very kind of you," he said. "Helpin' me to make
the beds, I suppose."
Cameron produced his search warrant; but Brodie
seemed not unfamiliar with such documents. He tapped
at it with his spoon.
"That's foolin'," he said. "There's nothing here that
paper will help you to get at."
Short of lifting every board, Cameron felt that was


78
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
possibly the truth. The hut had no cupboards, and the
lockers standing between the beds were too small to
contain a gun. But the wood-shed, the kitchen and other
offices still remained.
"I'll have a look outside, then," he said.
"It's something in my larder, I suppose," the cook
sneered.
"Not unconnected with your larder," Cameron agreed.
But he left Munro to continue his search of the hut's
interior, and for a moment Brodie seemed undecided as
to which man he had better watch. Cameron observed
this hesitation with interest: the cook's decision as to
which of them he had better keep his eye on could be
taken as a pointer. He stepped round the corner of the
hut and then heard Brodie hurrying after him. But as
soon as he turned in behind the long building and saw
the steaming cauldron standing over the burning logs,
he thought it possible the cook might have been drawn
there by a sense of his professional responsibilities.
Cameron went up to the cauldron and removed the lid.
"Good stuff that," he said as Brodie came up behind.
Brodie began to stir the contents with his wooden
spoon.
"I don't ken what you're lookin' for," he said, "but
I don't think you'll find it in this stew."
Cameron saw that no kind of game simmered among
the steaming ingredients.
"Like a taste?" As Cameron bent over the pot Brodie
suddenly thrust a spoonful of the stew within an inch
of the sergeant's mouth.
The sergeant did not start back as the grinning cook
expected.
"I like mine flavoured with game," he said coolly.
"Game!" Brodie cried. "And how do you think poor


THE TWO NO. 5 CARTRIDGES
79
working men like us could come by any game?"
"It's usually got with a gun, I believe," Cameron said
in an explanatory tone.
"Do you tell me so!" mocked the cook, replacing the
lid and wiping his hands on his apron. Then he looked
up suddenly as if struck by a new idea. "You're no
suspectin' us of havin' a gun, are you?"
"Oh, no," the sergeant said easily, "not suspecting you
at all. I'm quite sure if you had a gun here there would
be evidence of it in that pot."
Brodie seemed to be rather taken aback by this ad-
mission. As he watched the sergeant move towards the
outhouses his face suggested that he was for the first
time in doubt as to why the police were there.
Cameron hid the disappointment he experienced when
he examined the contents of the stew; for he felt certain
that had the gun been anywhere near at hand he would
have found evidence of the fact where he had looked for
it. This conviction, however, did not make his search
any less thorough. He went through the store and the
implement sheds, and looked among and under the piles
of wood and empty barrels in a way that must have con-
vinced the watchful Brodie that the search was for some-
thing much smaller than a gun.
Brodie, however, at the end of it all knew that, what-
ever the officer sought, he had failed to find it, unless
indeed it was something he could put into the pocket of
his tunic. Seeing him emerge empty-handed, the cook
grinned.
"I doubt you've come to the wrong shop this time,"
he sniggered.
Cameron said nothing. Brodie, seeing him busy with
his handkerchief, flicking his knees and coat sleeves, of-
fered to find him a brush, if, meanwhile, he would keep


80 THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
an eye on the stew. Brodie, indeed, displayed much
concern over the risk the sergeant's uniform had run, and
moved round him two or three times to make a careful
scrutiny. Although the mockery was quite apparent,
Cameron could do nothing to resent it.
But just when Big Brodie was at the top of his tri-
umph over the sergeant's discomfiture, Munro emerged
from the hut. Cameron at once perceived he had got
something. Brodie himself divined as much from Mun-
ro's alert advance, for the smile vanished as the two
officers drew apart, leaving him with no more than a view
of their backs.
"I got this in one of the coats hanging on the wall,"
Munro said, opening his hand to reveal a cartridge.
Cameron picked it up, and turning it round, discov-
ered with a thrill of satisfaction that it was stamped
with the numeral 5, which proved it to be loaded with
shot of the same size extracted from Brent's wounds.
"Do you know whose the coat is?" Cameron mur-
mured.
"There was no name on it, but it was hanging above
Hugh Cameron's locker," Munro said. "There were two
cartridges. I left the other where it was."
"Quite right," the sergeant nodded. "We must get
that coat identified."
Brodie, summoned to accompany them, followed into
the hut doubtfully. About the coat he was non-commit-
tal. Unaware as to why information about it was wanted,
he seemed unable to be positive about anything. How
could he be expected to know all the coats in the hut?
Did they think he was valet as well as cook? Yes, it
was quite true the locker was Hugh Cameron's; but men
were careless about where they hung their coats, and, if
it come to that, not very particular about which bed


82
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
approached his bed the sergeant held up the coat.
"This is yours, I think," he said.
The other stared alternately at the coat and the man
who held it.
"What about it?" he asked, as Gallacher and Oakroyd
sidled up to Brodie.
"Just this," the sergeant said. "I hold a search war-
rant for this hut, and among other things I'm going to
put my hand into the pockets of this coat."
This brought a number of the men off their beds, and
a group formed round the sergeant, who stood in the
middle rather like a conjuror about to perform some
sleight-of-hand trick. Munro could see that while the
mass of onlookers craning their necks were agape with
curiosity, the members of the gang themselves were
quite at ease. In fact, when the sergeant, thrusting his
hand into an outside pocket, produced a cartridge, Oak-
royd and Gallacher clapped their hands in ironical ap-
plause.
"Ah!" said the sergeant, "perhaps you will tell me
what this is for?"
Hugh Cameron glanced at his friends.
"Looks like summat they put in a gun to me," Oak-
royd remarked.
"That's right," Gallacher nodded. "Sure, I've often
put such a thing there myself."
It was easy to identify both men from their accents.
The sergeant looked at Gallacher.
"Done a bit of shooting in your time, I suppose," he
said.
Gallacher stared truculently back.
"I have so," he said. "Quite a lot of us here have
done a bit of shooting in our time, though we don't
plaster three ribbons on our chest to make a boast of it."


THE TWO NO. 5 CARTRIDGES
83
A burst of laughter followed this sally. Young Munro,
pale with rage, clenched his fists, and for a moment for-
got he was a policeman. His sergeant, however, remained
calm.
"No, I can believe that," he said mildly.
"Can you so?" Gallacher sneered.
"Yes, indeed I can!" the sergeant nodded. "Your
kind of shooting is more likely to bring you three years
than three ribbons." Then in the midst of the appre-
ciative laughter this evoked, Cameron turned to his fel-
low clansman.
"What use have you for these cartridges?" he de-
manded, again exhibiting the one in his hand.
"He picked that un up on th' road," Oakroyd put in.
"I was wi' him masel' when he did. Wasn't I, lad?"
But when he turned for confirmation to Cameron the
look he met showed him something had gone wrong.
"Just this one?" the sergeant asked.
"That's right," Oakroyd persisted weakly, feeling
something had gone amiss somewhere.
Then the sergeant produced the other cartridge Munro
had found.
"And this one?" he asked.
But Oakroyd was as silent as Gallacher himself now.
Munro alone heard the soft curse that came from Big
Brodie standing at his elbow. Then feet began to shuffle
as the tension broke. The sergeant turned to Cameron.
"I'm going to take you to the station," he said, "so
that you can explain to the superintendent for what pur-
pose you carry ammunition."


CHAPTER VIII
MR. WILLOUGHBY LENDS A HAND
Superintendent Rintoul happened to be brooding over
some difficulty not connected with this case when he
heard Munro pull up. Glancing over the wire blind, he
was surprised to see the sergeant on the pillion behind
Munro, with what looked like a prisoner occupying the
seat in the side-car. This was quick work indeed. He
forgot the trouble on which he had been pondering, and
waited almost with eagerness for the sound of the ser-
geant's step.
Cameron's story was soon told. Once Rintoul had
opened the end of a cartridge to verify the size of the
shot he felt that here, at last, they had got hold of some-
thing concrete. The possession of cartridges did not im-
ply that they wanted this man on any graver charge than
that of poaching. And from the sergeant's story Rin-
toul thought none of the others would suppose any graver
charge hung over them. But the discovery that the shot
found in this man's pocket was of the same calibre as
that handed to him by Dr. Macfarlane, and now sealed
up in his desk, did definitely bring the graver charge
nearer.
"Still," he said, as Cameron waited for the order to
bring the man in, "it is a pity you didn't get the gun."
"I'm almost sure they haven't got it, sir," Cameron
said.
"You think it's still up on the moor?"
Cameron assented.
"I'm quite sure if they had a gun in their possession,
with a man like this—this Cameron to use it, I'd have
found proof of the fact. There was no trace of any
84



FKOM SERJEANT CAMFRONS NOTE BOOK.


:


MR. WIIXOUGHBY LENDS A HAND 85
game anywhere about the place."
Rintoul, stroking his chin, considered this.
"Yes," he said. "The chances are that whoever fired
at Brent would return the gun to its hiding-place. He
would be too frightened, after yielding to his impulse,
of being seen with it. He would be quite content to
leave it in a place already proved to be so secure. He
would know he could come back to retrieve it at a safer
time."
"And that they haven't done as yet." The sergeant
was very emphatic.
Rintoul was inclined to agree.
"All right," he said. "Now we'll have this man"—he
avoided using the surname—"in, and ask him where he
was between five and six yesterday."
If the honest Cameron thought he had cornered the
other Cameron he was soon undeceived. Hugh Cameron,
informed by the superintendent that a man not unlike
himself was suspected of poaching between the hours
mentioned, immediately produced an alibi. He had, he
said, gone straight from his work over to Glendye.
"Glendye!" Rintoul exclaimed, for Glendye was five
miles away on the Arkaig road. "What were you doing
there?"
"My mother lives there. She washes my things for
me, and I had gone to get them."
Rintoul looked at the sergeant. It hardly sounded like
the alibi a man would fake; it could be so easily tested.
There must be independent witnesses who would have
seen the man either at Glendye or coming or going there.
Asked to account for the cartridges found in his pos-
session, Hugh Cameron explained they were two he had
found in a coat at home on the previous Friday. He did
not know they were there because he had not worn the


86
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
coat since the time he lost his job as underkeeper at
Kinloch. When it was pointed out to him that this did
not tally with what Oakroyd had said, Cameron sullenly
asserted that he was telling the truth and was not re-
sponsible for what Oakroyd said. Asked if he could name
any one who had seen him on the road between five and
six o'clock, he said he had met several, none of whom he
knew.
"None at all?" Rintoul inquired incredulously. "You,
who belong to the district?"
"Except the shooting tenant of Arrochmore, that devil
Willoughby who got Haggerty his six months." Came-
ron replied with a swift scowl of hate.
Rintoul attached no importance to this assertion as
evidence for an alibi. It was an easy guess that Wil-
loughby would be on the road about then, for they knew
he was at Inverness in connection with Haggerty's trial,
and, indeed, counted on his absence there when they
sent one of their number to recover the gun. That Cam-
eron asserted he had seen Mr. Willoughby on that road
at that time went for nothing unless Mr. Willoughby
could remember passing a navvy carrying a bundle.
Then Hugh Cameron sat up like a man who recalls
something useful. He had seen the unbelief on the
superintendent's face. So now with a gleam of triumph
in his own eyes he said there was one man who could
speak for him. He had asked a lift from a baker's van
about a mile along the Glendye road. The name on the
van, he remembered, was MacDougall.
Rintoul, at the mention of the name, exchanged a look
with his sergeant. This would simplify matters. Mac-
Dougall's bakery was only about a hundred yards from
the police station.
Sergeant Cameron was lucky enough to find the man


MR. WILLOUGHBY LENDS A HAND 87
who did the Glendye round as he was about to knock off
work. He remembered a man with a bundle under his
arm who had stopped him to ask for a lift when he was
on his homeward run, about a quarter to six it would be.
He did not know the man. He had refused his request.
Yes, he might know him again, though he looked like a
navvy, and one navvy looked very like another. He was
quite sure of the time, because he was making for home
and had done his last call.
While taking the vanman to the office, Cameron's
thought was that if the identification was satisfactory his
fellow clansman would certainly be cleared, for the posi-
tion on the Glendye road where this man had spoken to
him, was much too distant from the point up on Kep-
poch moor where the shot had been fired. And when
the two men faced each other it was obvious both to
Rintoul and to Cameron that the recognition was mutual.
"That's the fellow," said the vanman.
Hugh Cameron sniffed.
"I hardly thought he stopped long enough to remem-
ber me," he said.
Rintoul grunted his disgust.
"Lucky for you he did," he said.
Rintoul and his sergeant conferred together after Hugh
Cameron had been sent back to Keppoch. The fact that
he had been seen by the vanman going in the direction of
Keppoch Moor at a quarter to six cleared him of the
actual deed; but Gallacher, Oakroyd and even Big Brodie
still remained.
Rintoul began to pace the floor.
"I thought we had a firm grip on it," he said; "but
now it seems to be slipping."
The sergeant, after a moment, agreed.
•"We seem to haye put our hands on the wrong man,"


88
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
he said softly, remembering that man's name.
Rintoul kept pacing about.
"Munro had better go to Glendye to-morrow and verify
further," he said at last. "We mustn't exclude the pos-
sibility of some sort of collusion between these two."
"Very good, sir," the sergeant said, thinking this as
far-fetched as any suggestion he had made in regard to
the young gentlemen from Arrochmore.
"We had better concentrate on finding that gun now,"
he sighed. "Any ideas, sergeant?"
"Well, sir, Munro and me hunted high and low for it
up there. Do you think it wouldn't be better to set a
watch on the hut from five o'clock on?"
"You mean follow any one who makes for Keppoch
Moor from there?"
"Just that. He might lead us to the gun."
Rintoul shook his head doubtfully. "If they saw you
watching, as they most likely would, they would never
move. No," he continued. "You'll just have to search
again—this time with a fine tooth comb in your hands."
And next day that is what Sergeant Cameron did with
the assistance of Constable Grant. Grant, being new to
the search, went about the business with great enthusiasm
and energy, while the sergeant, if he did not cover the
ground with the figurative small tooth comb, hunted in
places where such an implement could never have pene-
trated. He tapped the trunks of trees in Keppoch Wood
for a possible unsuspected hollow interior, and even
scrambled up among the branches to make sure that in
none of them a gun yet lay where it had been hastily
thrown. At the end of the day, Rintoul, on receiving the
report of failure, still stood determined to go for the gun.
"We know the gun must be there," he said. "Hag-
gerty had his own place for it. And I'm sure it's there


MR. WILLOUGHBY LENDS A HAND 89
now, though it has been used since he used it. Other-
wise, if it had been put in any ordinary place you would
have come on it already."
When Cameron assented to this, Rintoul's coolness
left him.
"Look here," he said almost fiercely, "we've got to get
that weapon." He came close up to the sergeant. "You
see what it means? To be fit for use that gun must
have been kept in some absolutely dry place. You can
count on that. And that means it almost certainly has
on it not only Haggerty's finger-prints, but also those of
the man who used it last."
Rintoul waited only to see his sergeant's face brighten
into agreement before he continued.
"My notion, sergeant, is to get Mr. Willoughby and
Murdoch the gamekeeper to give us a line. Show us, I
mean, the line Haggerty took when he ran from them.
Mr. Willoughby had him in view almost continually, and
Haggerty must have planted his weapon somewhere
within a yard or two of the path he took."
Cameron could not comprehend why they had not
thought of that before. And those finger-prints of the
man who had last used the gun—they were what they
needed; they would be as good evidence for the identity
of the man who shot Mr. Brent as the evidence of any
eye-witness.
Next morning, with Mr. Willoughby and Rintoul go-
ing on ahead, Cameron, Munro, Grant and Peter Mur-
doch the gamekeeper once more climbed to Keppoch
Moor.
"Man, sergeant, I'd have had a shot at the fellow
myself if Mr. Willoughby hadn't been between us," Mur-
doch declared as they reached the top.
Cameron shared the exasperation of the old game-


90
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
keeper, but was not prepared to express it in the same
way.
"Well!" he said, "I wish something had brought him
down before he hid this infernal gun."
Murdoch grunted.
"Ay," he said, "ay. And thae damned fools in the
court didna' believe he had a gun."
Munro looked round.
"They had to go by the evidence," he said. "And Mr.
Willoughby, who was much nearer than you, could not
swear he had one."
"Evidence!" Murdoch cried. "What about the shot?
There's no smoke without fire, and I suppose there's no
shot without a gun."
"And who had the gun?" Munro inquired. "Some
folks think you had."
"Now, now," said the sergeant, "no more of this!"
There was no more of it till the party reached the
point at which the pursuit of Haggerty started. At that
point a long halt followed, for Murdoch and Mr. Wil-
loughby were at variance as to the exact course Hag-
gerty had taken. Whether or no the gamekeeper had
been made cantankerous by Munro's innuendo, Cameron
could not say, but he held to his opinion with all the
stubbornness of his mulish nature. While the discussion
was at its height Rintoul drew his sergeant aside for a
word in his ear.
"I asked Mr. Willoughby just now about what Hugh
Cameron said. He does remember meeting a navvy with
a bundle just before he reached Glendye."
Cameron stared.
"Meeting him?" he said.
Rintoul nodded. "Ah, you noticed that?" he said.
"So did I, but I made no remark on it. Odd, I thought,
that two vehicles'going in the same direction should both


MR. WILLOUGHBY LENDS A HAND 91
meet and overtake a man." Then as the sergeant was
puzzling over this, Rintoul added, "I'm not so sure of
that vanman. Some of these trades vans do a bit of
business with the poachers up and down the road. We'll
have to look more closely into this fellow's movements
and associates."
There was no time for more as Mr. Willoughby beck-
oned the superintendent over.
"We are agreed on one point," he said with a smile.
"Haggerty ran from here straight to those bushes at the
edge of the slope." He indicated a clump of wind-blown
shrubs which stood prominently up about two hundred
yards across the heather. On reaching the bushes Rin-
toul looked back.
"When you reached here, Murdoch was well behind
you, I understand," he said.
"He was about half way. I had a start of him, you
know, for I saw the man first," Willoughby explained.
As they stood at the top of the slope Cameron per-
ceived that they were very close to the ground he had
included in his sketch plan. Taking out his note book, he
had merely to prolong the lines an inch or two to the
west to include the position in which they now stood.
"You see," Mr. Willoughby was saying to Rintoul,
"Murdoch here thinks he saw him going straight for that
dip in the ground down there."
"And your view, sir?" Rintoul inquired.
Mr. Willoughby pointed to the right.
"By the time Murdoch arrived here," he said, "I was
following him in that direction."
"Well," Rintoul remarked. "It certainly seems the
more likely. He had ever so much more cover there."
Mr. Willoughby agreed.
"And I can tell you he used it too. It was amazing
how he ducked and doubled and ran among those bushes


92
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
at such speed. I had him in full view though till he was
almost at the bottom of the slope, where I lost him
again."
Rintoul removed the notebook from the sergeant's
hands, and passing it to Mr. Willoughby together with
his own pencil, asked him to touch in Haggerty's course.
This Mr. Willoughby did, and then consulting with Mur-
doch, also touched in the gamekeeper's theory of the
course taken.
"I stick to that," Murdoch declared.
"Well," Rintoul said, "if he was there at all you must
have seen him, for there's nothing but the heather be-
tween here and the burn."
"It was doon by the burn I saw him."
Rintoul looked at the notebook in his hand and then
turned sharply to the gamekeeper.
"You just assumed he followed this line, then?" He
tapped the book almost angrily, and then turned from
the man to his master.
"I think, sir, I see how it is," he said. "Haggerty, of
course, made for the right, where there was so much
cover. Then, near the bottom of the slope, he deliber-
ately allowed you to see him before he turned away to
the left, where you lost sight of him. He was trying to
mislead you—to make you think he was heading straight
on. Then he crossed the burn at a point invisible from
where you had then reached, but not invisible from where
Murdoch stood at the top of the slope."
"Does it really matter so much?" Mr. Willoughby
asked, a little impatiently. "On one or other of these
routes the man got rid of his gun, if he had a gun at all."
Rintoul turned again to the gamekeeper.
"You said you heard a shot fired, Murdoch. Where
were you when you heard it?"


MR. WILLOUGHBY LENDS A HAND 93
"Just before I reached here."
Rintoul looked down the slope almost ruefully.
"There's more to this than you might think, sir," he
said to Willoughby, standing at his side. "That gun's
going to be an ill thing to find. This slope has already
been well hunted and also the wood beyond the burn."
Mr. Willoughby shrugged.
"Then it can't be here at all," he said.
"It most certainly is," Rintoul declared. "That gun
is somewhere between this spot where we now stand, and
the spot where you caught the man in that wood."
"Then somebody must have picked it up before your
search began. For myself, I don't think the man had
a gun at all."
Rintoul exchanged a look with his sergeant.
"We have good reason to believe he had," he said
quietly. "We have also reason to believe it has not yet
been removed by any of Haggerty's friends." As Mr.
Willoughby moved impatiently, he added, "You forget
the kind of men these are, sir. For them to carry a gun
between this moor and their huts is out of the question.
But it's a simple matter for them to keep it here. Re-
member their occupation. With one of their drilling
tools a hole could be cut into the ground, the gun wrapped
in a tarpaulin, thrust inside, and the opening covered
with a tussock of grass no bigger than a man's hand."
"By George!—never thought of that," Mr. Willoughby
cried. "No wonder you've worried so much about his
line of flight."
Murdoch nodded to Munro and Grant. "Ay, they're
sly devils. Shootin's too good for them. If I had my
way—"
"We're not so sure you didn't try," Munro said, with
a wink to Grant.


CHAPTER IX
FISHING ON A GROUSE MOOR
A really intensive search for the gun began on the after-
noon of the following day. Heavy rain had fallen all
through the night, but conditions improved sufficiently
in the forenoon to allow the sergeant and his two officers
to work over the ground an hour or two after the deluge
ceased.
On reaching the slope Cameron saw that the water in
the burn had risen. Fed by the many little streams which
carried the rainfall off the mighty slopes of the moun-
tains, it was a brown and creamy torrent almost worthy
to be called a river. Apparently there were others of
the same opinion. Munro, with a touch on his arm,
drew the sergeant's attention to some men who seemed
to be fishing in those waters.
Cameron, a trifle irritated with these intruders, who
would probably watch the search and talk about it after-
wards, went on ahead. His intention was to challenge
their right to fish on Mr. Willoughby's land, if they did
not decamp at sight of him. One of the men had no
rod, and it was he who drew the others' attention to the
sergeant's approach. Cameron resolved not to follow if
they ran: he had more important business on hand. But
they did not run, not even the boy who had the second
rod. Then he saw that the man who had turned, rod in
hand, was Mr. Harwood.
"Hallo!" he cried. "You up here again?"
"Fishing—like yourself, sir," Cameron said.
Harwood's mouth took on a grim little significant
smile.
"Not quite for the same fish, though, eh?"
94


FISHING ON A GROUSE MOOR
95
"I'd like to have a word with you about that, if you
don't mind," Cameron rejoined, with a glance at the
others.
"Oh, we're all fishers here," Harwood nodded. "Mr.
Bray here is a fisher too—at least he's going to be. Not
trout, you know, but souls."
The boy burst into a shriek of laughter, and Harwood,
seeing Cameron standing mystified, explained.
"Going to be a parson, aren't you, Bray?"
"Such is my hope, certainly," the young man replied
with naive earnestness.
"Been trying his 'prentice hand on Mr. Brent," Har-
wood said, as he made another cast.
Cameron divined that Mr. Bray was something of a
butt for the other's wit.
"How is Mr. Brent?" he asked, watching Harwood's
line float down the stream.
Harwood, the cast finished without a bite, thrust his
rod into Mr. Bray's hands.
"Oh, he's all right," he said.
The boy turned his head.
"Pretty blue about his arm, though," he said.
"Richard, you mean disquieted," Bray protested.
Harwood laughed.
"Oh, the sergeant understood Dick all right," he said.
"Well, he is in a funk about his arm."
"Richard—junk!" Mr. Bray breathed reproachfully.
Harwood led the way along the bank.
"Now what are you after, sergeant?" he asked, when
they were out of earshot. "You don't still suspect Cress-
well of shooting Brent, do you?"
Cameron didn't like that. He liked it just as little as
he had liked Harwood's jest at Bray's expense. Indeed,
he rather disliked Harwood altogether. He remembered


96 THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
it was Harwood who showed such impatience on the eve-
ning Brent was shot.
"It's just this, sir," he said, ignoring the other's ques-
tion. "We think we know now who shot Mr. Brent.
We're up here to find the proofs. It would be well for
us if you said nothing about seeing us here."
Harwood opened his eyes rather wide.
"Yes," he said, after a moment, "that will be all right.
This means, of course, there's some clue on the spot
which you know about but haven't as yet found."
Cameron saw his eyes go up the slope to where Munro
and Grant were already busy, poking about on the route
Murdoch asserted Haggerty had taken. Cameron, how-
ever, had no intention of telling him what the thing was,
but before more was said an excited shout came from
the boy. He had hooked a fish, and Mr. Bray, dropping
Harwood's rod, ran to his assistance. Cameron and
Harwood got back in time to see a brown burn trout
leap into the air.
"Hell!" cried Dick, as the gut snapped.
"Richard!" Mr. Bray expostulated.
The disappointed youth turned to Harwood.
"Think he was as big as the one you lost here last
Tuesday?" he asked.
"Bigger," Harwood nodded.
Dick began to reel up his line.
"Well, fishing's a mug's game, anyway," he said.
"You struck too hard," Harwood said. "Like me, you
were too heavy-handed with him, Dick."
"Oh, yes," the youth pouted. "Fishin's all right for
piano-playing fellows like Brent." Then, as Harwood
began to attach a new cast to the line, he added: "All
the same, if you had taken me shooting last Wednesday
you wouldn't have needed to stick me at the end of the


FISHING ON A GROUSE MOOR
97
line to save the other men from getting shot."
Harwood, his fingers busy, looked up with a wink at
the sergeant. Dick Willoughby evidently nursed a griev-
ance.
"Dick doesn't like lily-handed piano-playing chaps,"
he explained.
"Well, who does like him except Mary and dad?" Dick
demanded.
"I like his playing extremely," Mr. Bray asserted, like
one anxious to find the best in everybody. "Mr. Wil-
loughby told me he had a great future as a pianist."
Dick sniffed.
"Oh, dad only said that because Mary's quite potty
about him."
"Richard!" Mr. Bray exclaimed.
Sergeant Cameron glided away to rejoin his two officers
busy on the slope. He felt sure Mr. Harwood would not
talk about seeing him there, but his hope was that they
might find the gun that afternoon. Then it would not
matter who talked.
It was mighty laborious work probing the ground to
find an opening that need not be more than six or seven
inches in diameter. Munro and Grant each had a walk-
ing-stick, the end of which had been sharpened the more
easily to penetrate the ground. But as the supposed hole
might be covered by a tuft of heather as well as by a
grass sod, the spiked walking-sticks were not so helpful
as had been anticipated. Once Cameron's heart gave a
leap in a fashion that revealed how eager he was when
he heard a sudden shout of triumph from Munro. But
it was a false alarm. Munro's stick had sunk not into
the hoped-for cache, but merely into a rabbit-hole.
By this time the three searchers had worked down to
within twenty yards of the burn, and then Cameron,


FISHING ON A GROUSE MOOR
99
though it was. Not wishing to disappoint the boy, he
said nothing about his belief that a big fish had been
hooked.
"It won't come away," he said to Harwood.
"That's an end to our fishing then," Harwood replied,
with a nod of finality.
"Send Mr. Bray in," Dick suggested.
"He hasn't got his goloshes," Harwood said. "No, no;
break it off, sergeant."
But Cameron had another try. He moved down stream
to get not only a straight pull but also to take advantage
of the downward rush of water. And then he felt the
thing move. With great precaution he coaxed it on inch
by inch, expecting each moment a vicious tug at the end
of the line which would snap his gut asunder. A moment
came when movement ceased. But there was no jerk on
the line.
"It's coming away," Dick said.
"Ay, but it's caught again," Cameron replied.
Straightening himself, he looked towards where he had
left his colleagues, and seeing them watching from a
distance, beckoned to Munro. When both officers were
at hand he told Munro to remove his boots.
"You have the best breeches for this work. Turn
them up and wade in for it."
Munro looked first at his perfectly-fitting leggings,
hesitated, and then, looking at his superior, read in his
eyes something of the wild, undefined hope that had just
burst into his mind. Without knowing what the look
meant, he saw that the sergeant meant what he said.
"Oh, it's not worth a wetting," Harwood said, inter-
posing himself between Munro and the water. But the
sergeant was determined.
Munro certainly did get wet, for the water was soon


100
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
swirling high above his rolled-up breeches. More than
that, as he reached the point where the line disappeared
under the surface, he stumbled on a hidden stone and
went under altogether. But how well worth it the duck-
ing was, became apparent, to Cameron and Grant at
least, when he reappeared with a cry. For he stood up-
right with a gun in his hand. But it was a gun on which
no finger-prints would be found.


CHAPTER X
TESTS FOR AN ALIBI
Superintendent Rintoul was not a man given to the
display of his emotions; and so Cameron was not disap-
pointed with the mere flicker of light in the eyes with
which his superior received the recovered weapon.
"That settles it," he said, as soon as they were alone
in his office. "No man throws his gun into water for a
whim."
Cameron was so pleased that he could not forbear a
jest.
"I've known a golfer throw his club into a burn after
missing a shot," he said.
"Ay," Rintoul nodded, "but it wouldn't be danger-
ous for him to go and get it out again. He must have
been hard pressed to throw this into the water."
Rintoul was not so disappointed as the sergeant ex-
pected, that there was no possibility now of getting finger-
prints from the gun. For one thing the gun almost cer-
tainly had been bought in Inverness. From what that
inn-keeper at Keppoch told Munro they probably
clubbed together to buy this gun, but it would be Hugh
Cameron who chose it.
The sergeant agreed to this; the ex-keeper would be
the only one who knew anything about sporting guns.
Rintoul at once took the sergeant's suggestion that a
visit to the Inverness gun-shops might be worth while.
"Probably the salesman who sold it will remember the
man who bought it," he continued. "Then Munro can
bring the man back, and we'll let him have a look at
Cameron." Rintoul paused to look thoughtfully at the
weapon on the table before him. "That prevarication
IOI


102
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
about the cartridges you found in his pocket is likely to
go hard with him."
"Of course his alibi still stands, sir," the sergeant re-
minded him.
"I doubt if it will when we probe a little deeper into
it," Rintoul said with dry cheerfulness. "There's bound
to be a hole in it somewhere. Where is Munro?"
When Cameron reminded him of the part played by
the young constable in recovering the gun, Rintoul
smiled.
"His breeches would be none the worse for a little
shrinking. Anyway, it's too late now to send him to
Inverness."
"And he's been over the nine hours on duty, sir,"
Cameron reminded him.
Rintoul did not appear to have heard.
"It's the alibi that bothers me now," he said. "You'd
better go over to Glendye yourself, and see his mother.
His story was that he goes each Wednesday to get his
washing, isn't it? Well, I've left him time since we had
him here to go back and put her up to what she is to
say. We can't help that now. But if you find he has
been home since Wednesday, that in itself will tell against
him. And it ought to be easy for you to know whether
she is lying or not."
Next morning Sergeant Cameron on his push-bike went
to Glendye. The cottage he sought stood up on a bank
above the road, and he found its owner surrounded by a
varied collection of hens which she was feeding. The
old woman seemed as startled as the hens themselves
when the sergeant stepped round the end of the cottage.
"Has there been an accident?" she quavered.
Cameron reassured her.
"Och no, nothing like that," he said.


TESTS FOR AN ALIBI
103
"Then he's been taken ill?" she said.
Cameron's eyes were on the basin in her shaking hands.
He avoided looking at her face.
"He was all right when you saw him last, was he not?"
"Ay," she said, "but—"
"When was that?"
Now the sergeant was looking her straight in the eyes.
He saw she was frightened.
"On Wednesday."
He waved a hand as if dismissing Wednesday.
"Oh, I know he comes to you on Wednesday. I meant
since Wednesday."
She shook her head.
"He hasna' been here since then."
He saw she was speaking the truth. He saw more. He
saw that there was no put-up alibi between this woman
and her son. The son might be an ill-doer; the mother
was not.
"Will you no' tell me what's wrong?" she pleaded.
"He hasna' been fechtin', has he?"
"He's suspected of poaching," he blurted out.
Relief showed on her face instantly. Poaching was
hardly considered a crime in that countryside.
"On Wednesday last," he added, "between five and
six."
Cameron looked at her almost hopefully. After all, he
would be glad to clear a fellow clansman. Besides, so
far as poaching was concerned, his inherited instincts
were always at war with his personal position as an officer
of the law.
The woman laughed on hearing the time.
"You've come to the wrong house, then," she said,
"for I met him myself between five and six."
"Met him?" Cameron cried. "Where did you meet


TESTS FOR AN ALIBI
he found Rintoul ready to agree with this opinion. The
superintendent indicated how this new fact explained a
detail which had puzzled him. Mr. Willoughby had re-
membered meeting a man with a bundle going towards
Glendye, while the vanman said he had overtaken a man
with a bundle coming away from Glendye at about a
quarter to six. That was an odd thing which had per-
plexed him. But now the explanation was obvious: in
between these two events Hugh Cameron had met his
mother and exchanged the separate bundles of clothes,
the bundle Mr. Willoughby had seen the man carrying
being a different one from that which the vanman had
seen. And the case against Hugh Cameron was advanced
another step when Munro returned from Inverness with
the gun. When they heard the detonation of his engine
cease outside, both the superintendent and the sergeant
knew he must have met with success to get back so
early. Munro entered carrying the gun.
"It was at Macdougel and Smith's Cameron got it,
sir," he said at once.
Rintoul with a gesture made him lay the weapon on
the table.
"You found the man who sold it?" he asked. "Does
he think he can identify the purchaser?"
"At first he could remember nothing about it," Munro
said. "But as soon as he looked up his books it all came
back. The gun was bought on the third of August last
by Hugh Cameron on the licence issued him while he
was under-keeper at Kinloch."
Again Rintoul thought Munro was assuming more than
the facts warranted.
"You mean, it was bought by a man who exhibited a
gun licence issued to Hugh Cameron, don't you?" he
corrected.


106 THE GROUSE MOOR. MURDER
"No, sir. Mr. Smith knows Cameron well by sight.
All the gun-room stock at Kinloch is bought from his
firm, and Cameron used to call for it regularly."
Rintoul looked over at the sergeant.
"They always do make some stupid blunder," he said.
"I wonder why it is. Why didn't he use that licence at
a shop where no one knew him? Good Lord, if Mr.
Brent had died the noose would be as good as round this
man's neck already."
Rintoul's face fell, however, when he heard what Munro
had to say in the matter of the alibi. Munro, who
was familiar with all the roads, was more than doubtful
whether the distance between Keppoch Moor and the
shepherd's cottage at Fintry could be covered between
the time at which the shooting took place and the time
Cameron was seen by Mr. Willoughby. On the other
hand, Cameron believed it could be done. But Rintoul
was aware that his motor patrol officer knew the ground
as well as any one. To settle the question Rintoul there
and then dispatched them both to check up the time a
man would take to go from the one point to the other.
Cameron sent Munro off with instructions not to start
from the spot where Brent was hit till his watch showed
a quarter past the hour. Then he himself returned on
the cycle till he reached a position on the Inverness road
where the burn from the moor passed under the road
bridge. Dismounting there, he sat down on the parapet
to wait. It was fairly certain that Hugh Cameron would
have followed the course of the burn. If he had come
round by the Keppoch road he could not possibly have
been seen by Mr. Willoughby at Fintry about a quarter
to six. He himself had taken not much less than that
to do it on the cycle. The sergeant took out his pipe
and filled it thoughtfully. A lot hung on this experi-


TESTS FOR AN ALIBI
107
ment. He noted the time on his wrist-watch at which
Munro would have started. A little later he stood up,
his eyes on the rising ground over which Munro would
come into sight. Quickly the minutes passed. He knew
he himself stood as nearly as possible half-way between
the starting-point and the finish at Fintry; but half the
time had gone and still there was no sign of Munro.
Cameron got a little flurried. He wished he had gone
himself, and left Munro with the cycle. Possibly he was
taking more care of his clothes than Hugh Cameron was
likely to do at any time. Then with relief he remem-
bered that the first half of the route was much harder
going than the remainder. There were bushes to be
avoided, and the banks of the burn made rough going,
with a stiff climb here and there.
At last he caught sight of Munro's head bobbing among
the whins, and then saw him descending the slope. By
the time he was on the road he had a bare twelve min-
utes left in which to reach Fintry. Munro did not ap-
pear to be in the least blown. Perhaps he was not too
anxious to prove himself mistaken.
"I did it just as I thought he would have done it," he
announced.
The sergeant's nerves had been on edge too long.
"Just that. Stopping to pick a flower or two by the
way, I suppose," he said.
He left him on the bridge with the cycle and himself
set off down the road for Fintry. It took him seven-
teen minutes of very hard walking; but he returned
satisfied. Munro, sitting on the bridge, cigarette in
mouth, watched him come. For all his jaunty attitude
and swinging legs, that young man seemed rather crest-
fallen.
"He could have done it," Cameron said, "even if he


108 THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
had loitered as much as yourself."
"It's shorter than I thought," Munro admitted; "but
what do you mean when you say I loitered?"
Cameron laughed.
"You didn't hurry much anyway," he said. "There
would have been more mud on your shoes and more
thorns on your breeches if you had."
"Sherlock!" said Munro, springing off the parapet.
Soon after half-past three they got back to the office.
Rintoul awaited them with eager expectancy. He was
sitting at his table, his notes on the case spread before
him.
"Well?" he demanded.
"He could have done it," Cameron said. "We did it
in just three minutes over the time."
RintouPs face looked rather blank at the mention of
those three minutes, but Munro removed the doubt.
"I took it at a walk, sir," he said. "I thought it safer.
If I ran I could do it in half the time."
Rintoul laughed.
The superintendent glanced at the clock, as if making
a calculation in minutes. The sergeant followed his gaze
and thus chanced to notice the time: the big hand was
at the quarter to four.
"We'll make you do that to-morrow," Rintoul said,
as the telephone at his elbow began to buzz, "in an older
pair of breeches.".
His ear went to the receiver.
"Yes," he said. . . . "Oh!—What's that?"
Cameron could just discern a voice, a feminine voice,
he thought, coming through. But the change that came
over the superintendent's face was startling.
"Door locked?" he said. . . . "You are quite sure it
was a shot you heard? ... All right, we'll be with you


TESTS FOR AN ALIBI
109
in a few minutes."
He replaced the receiver and stood up.
"That was from the housekeeper at Duchray," he said.
"She's just heard a shot in the library. There's no one in
the house but herself at the moment, except Mr. Brent.
And the library door locked."
Munro's cycle with the combination attached was still
at the door. In another minute they were on the road to
Duchray.


CHAPTER XI
DEATH IN A LIBRARY
It was not usual to see the police dashing at break-
neck speed through the town. It was seldom that Super-
intendent Rintoul occupied a seat in Munro's combina-
tion. People stopped to stare as the three swept on. Out
on the open road, however, they were past before any
walker had time to stare. Rintoul spoke no more till they
reached the point where the Arrochmore policies border
the main road. There just before Munro had to slow
down in order to take the sharp turn through the gate-
way into the drive, they overtook Mr. Cresswell, striding
along with a blue cardboard box tucked under his arm.
They shot past before he could turn his head, but he gave
them a hail, though whether to ask a lift or as a jesting
protest at the dangerous speed, Cameron could not tell.
Anyway a lift was out of the question. But Rintoul from
his seat looked up at his sergeant perched behind Munro.
"Maybe there's nothing in it after all," he remarked
hopefully.
Any comment from Cameron was prevented when
Munro braked so sharply that the sergeant was flung
forward onto the driver's back. In another instant all
three went swinging over as Munro swerved his outfit
round to enter the drive. But by the time they passed
the fork and was heading up for Duchray, Rintoul ap-
peared to have changed his mind and taken a more seri-
ous view of the housekeeper's call. For at this point he
broke silence again, pointing to the pathway beyond the
tennis lawns.
"You'll allow none of these people inside," he said.
Cameron, looking across, saw several men running
no


DEATH IN A LIBRARY
"5
who was trying to break from them and enter the room.
Cameron knew the wild-eyed girl to be Miss Willoughby.
She ceased struggling as soon as she saw him emerge
through the window.
"Is he dead?" she whispered.
"He is badly hurt," Cameron said. "We are waiting
for the doctor."
"I must see him," she cried with sudden vehemence.
They all tried to keep the distraught girl quiet. But
she listened to the sergeant when he told her it would
be more helpful to Mr. Brent if she went with the house-
keeper to get ready some room to which he would pres-
ently be carried.
When Cameron re-entered the library he found Rintoul
waiting for him.
"It's not only the business of the key," Rintoul said,
"there's the pen too."
"Yes, sir," Cameron said expectantly. He did not see
that the pen said anything.
"The pen was wet with ink, yet as you see for your-
self, sergeant, he wrote nothing."
The sergeant took the point: the sheets of notepaper
lying on the desk had not been used.
"If he used the pen," Rintoul went on, "it looks as if
some one has carried away whatever it was he wrote.
On the other hand, if he wrote nothing why did he dip
the pen in the ink?"
Cameron found no comment to make.
"It's curious too," Rintoul resumed, "that we should
find the pen on the floor and the revolver on the desk—
just the reverse of what you would expect their respective
positions to be."
"I don't think he ••shot himself," Cameron said with
conviction.


DEATH IN A LIBRARY
117
the pockets when both were attracted by a slight ex-
clamation from the doctor. He had stooped to the floor
and picked up a sheet of notepaper which had been lying
under the body.
"Ah!" he said, handing the paper to the superintend-
ent. "There you are."
Over Rintoul's shoulder, Cameron read:
"Darling—I am sick of all this. Why did yo—"
"Yes," Macfarlane commented, "poor young devil, he
turned sick, it seems, even of writing before he got out
what he was sick about."
Rintoul kept staring at the paper like a man who could
hardly believe his eyes. Cameron felt that way himself.
Macfarlane, of course, knew nothing of the locked door
and the absent key. Suddenly Rintoul stepped across to
the couch and began to go through the dead man's
pockets. Almost at once Cameron saw his hand stop.
"Ah," he said, "this explains it."
He drew out a key of a size which suggested it might
be the missing door-key. Rintoul at once demonstrated
this to be the fact by opening the door with it.
"You were right, doctor. Of course you've had oppor-
tunities of seeing his mental condition."
Macfarlane nodded. "He worried enough about that
arm," he said. "And it was worse than I told him. He
must have guessed what I didn't tell him."
Cameron covered the body up with a rug. The dis-
covery of the key, and what was evidently going to be a
letter of farewell to Miss Willoughby, had completely
altered the case. Once more Hugh Cameron came into
the affair. Not indeed as principal in Brent's death,
but certainly as the ultimate cause of it, morally, though


Il8 THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
not legally, guilty.
Cameron drew Rintoul's attention to the presence of
Mr. Willoughby, who had joined the group standing out
on the lawn. He looked white and shaken.
When the sergeant brought him inside, it was the
poacher's responsibility for the tragedy that seemed to
affect him most.
"That shot on the moor was meant for me, you know,"
he said. "I feel deeply about it. If I hadn't got that
ruffian convicted poor Brent would be alive now."
Both Rintoul and the doctor attempted consolation.
"You only did your duty, sir," Rintoul said. "You
couldn't foresee all that was to follow."
"I certainly never anticipated anything like this,"
Macfarlane added, "and I can assure you I kept a close
watch on his mental reaction to his wound."
Mr. Willoughby sighed and shook his head.
"Perhaps I'm not quite so free of blame there as you
think," he said. "Perhaps I ought to have warned you
his father shot himself—"
Macfarlane threw up his head.
"Ah!" he cried, "that explains a lot."
"Too late to be of any good now," Mr. Willoughby
said with remorse, "but, of course, I never anticipated
anything like this," he added, appealing to Rintoul.
Rintoul sympathetically agreed.
"Of course you didn't, sir, and one naturally keeps
quiet about such a fact when there is no occasion to
mention it."
"Do you know if the young man was aware how his
father died?" Macfarlane asked.
"I understood he did," Mr. Willoughby replied. "The
case somehow did not get much publicity, but I heard
the facts from Mr. Harwood. Mr. Brent was rather an


DEATH IN A LIBRARY
119
odd old gentleman with a penchant for all sorts of inven-
tions. He shot himself over the failure of some rather
wild-cat invention on which he had spent a considerable
sum."
Rintoul and Macfarlane exchanged a glance. The
doctor waved a hand as if no more need be said. Rintoul,
too, as he pocketed the revolver, considered that the
tragedy now stood explained. Then something made him
turn again to Mr. Willoughby.
"You said, sir, you heard the facts from Mr. Harwood.
How did he come to know them if the case got little
publicity?"
"Oh, that's quite simple," Mr. Willoughby promptly
replied. "He had inside knowledge from his father, who
was the senior partner of the firm of solicitors, Harwood
and Cresswell, then acting for Mr. Brent."
Superintendent Rintoul, after assisting Cameron to
seal up the room, left Duchray feeling that he had a
perfectly straightforward case to put before the Pro-
curator-Fiscal next morning. All the same, he was more
than ever determined to get at Hugh Cameron for that
attempt on Mr. Willoughby's life, which was, beyond
doubt, the real cause of young Brent's death.


CHAPTER XII
MRS. BRENT SHOCKS THE FISCAL
Rintoul, on his return to the office, took up the case of
Hugh Cameron at the point where consideration of it had
been stopped by the telephone call from Duchray. But
Brent's death made him keener than ever, since he now
regarded Hugh Cameron as a murderer morally if not
legally. The sergeant's investigations having destroyed
Cameron's alibi, the next step was to establish his pres-
ence on the moor about the time of the shooting. Rin-
toul's idea was that the Sergeant and Munro might scout
around Keppoch and find some shepherd, forester or
road-man who had seen the man in the vicinity. It
would be something if they could come on any person
who had seen him—say—on the Keppoch road at all,
since he had asserted that after leaving work he had
taken the Arkaig road to his mother's house, and the
Keppoch road to the moor went in exactly the opposite
direction.
Cameron thought it not unlikely he would find some
one who had seen the young man on the Keppoch road,
for if he had been on it at all he had been on it at a time
when road men and outdoor workers were usually making
for their homes. After that his denial that he had been
on that road to the moor, when taken together with the
smashed alibi, his purchase of the gun in Inverness and
his possession of the No. 5 cartridges, would leave him
with a case to answer when Rintoul next confronted him
with it.
So, at least, Rintoul was thinking when after a tap on
his door Munro entered to say that Mr. Willoughby had
brought down Mrs. Brent to see the superintendent. Mr.
120


122
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
be sure we would have had a Scotland Yard of our own.
Come now, just speak to me as if I came from Scotland
Yard."
"But you don't," she said. "You don't, and this is no
time for play-acting."
Rintoul got rather nettled.
"Very well," he said. "I'm afraid I can't help you if
that's your attitude."
Mrs. Brent nervously passed her hand across her over-
bright eyes.
"Then I shall have to keep what I had to say till the
inquest," she said.
Rintoul looked over at Cameron.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Brent," he said apologetically and
half repenting of his previous sharpness, "but again I
have to remind you we are in Scotland: there are no
inquests here."
Mrs. Brent's amazement seemed to overcome her
arthritis. She seemed about to rise in her chair.
"What!" she cried. "No inquest? What a country!
Oh, but they chose well, they chose well!" she added
brokenly, getting out her handkerchief.
Rintoul gave her a moment or two to recover.
"Now, Mrs. Brent," he said soothingly, "please let me
reassure you. If we have no coroner we have an official
which some consider rather more formidable—the Pro-
curator-Fiscal—who is quite as thorough in his work,
though he carries it through in private."
Cameron saw her head go up with almost a jerk.
"In private?" she repeated, her eyes glittering as she
bent forward intently. "Do you mean none of the other
witnesses know what has been said by any one else?"
"Indeed they don't," Rintoul declared. "The Procura-
tor-Fiscal takes precognitions from each in turn pri-


MRS. BRENT SHOCKS THE FISCAL 12$
vately, and forms his own judgment on the evidence.
And if he considers there is even a suspicion of crime he
takes immediate action for a prosecution. He will be
here to-morrow, you know."
There was a long pause.
"Very well," she said at length, "I'm glad you have
an official like that. He sounds as if he is very suitable
for what I have to say."
"Of course, if you would like to say anything to
me—" Rintoul began.
She shook her head with decision.
"No, thank you. It will keep till to-morrow." Then
looking round, she saw the sergeant. "There's just this
one thing," she added. "This officer of yours, I know he
suspected something that night when he stayed at Du-
chray after my boy was first shot on the moor. Will he
tell to-morrow what it was he suspected then?"
Cameron shifted uneasily in his seat. Rintoul himself
seemed to be hunting for an answer to this query. The
sergeant could not imagine what his superintendent would
say, for of course that far-fetched suspicion against Mr.
Cresswell had been long since abandoned. Mrs. Brent
got impatient.
"If I put it to him," she cried, "will he deny that he
was there because he expected another attack to be made
on my boy that night?"
"He will not," Rintoul said, sitting up alertly at the
challenge; "but he will also tell the Procurator that his
suspicion was a mistake."
In view, however, of what Mrs. Brent had said, Rintoul
decided that Cameron must be present for possible ques-
tions by the Procurator-Fiscal next day. So Munro was
sent off alone to scout for witnesses against Hugh Cam-
eron.


124
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
The inquiry opened at ten next morning in the library
at Duchray.
Mr. Murray, the Procurator-Fiscal, was a cold-eyed,
tight-lipped man of about fifty, who brought much of
the incisiveness of speech and curtness of manner ac-
quired as a provost-marshal during the war into his post-
war functions. Indeed, he looked quite formidable as he
sat at the table with Superintendent Rintoul at one end
and the sergeant taking notes at the other. Rintoul had
passed him the word that there might be a little trouble
with the deceased's mother. And this determined the
Procurator as to the order in which the witnesses were
called. He wanted to hear every one else before he heard
Mrs. Brent.
The housekeeper, Mrs. Murchison, came first. It was,
she said, half-past three when she heard the shot. She
knew the time for she was about to make herself a cup
of tea which she always did at that time. Except for
Mr. Brent she was alone in the house. Mr. Willoughby,
half an hour earlier, had called with his car to take Dr.
Frossard and Mrs. Brent for a drive. While she went
upstairs to help Mrs. Brent, Mr. Willoughby had gone
into the library to persuade Dr. Frossard also to come.
Yes, Mr. Brent was already at that time in the library
too. She knew that because he had been using his
mother's wheel-chair lately, and she saw the chair stand-
ing at the library door. She did not know if Mr. Brent
had also been asked to go for a drive; but she did not
think so. Asked why she did not think so, her reply
was that if Mr. Brent went Dr. Frossard would have to
stay, since with the chauffeur there would be no room for
more in the car. It was Mr. Willoughby and Dr. Fros-
sard who carried Mrs. Brent downstairs. After seeing
them off she went upstairs and put Mrs. Brent's room to


MRS. BRENT SHOCKS THE FISCAL 12 5
rights and then went to the kitchen and put on the kettle.
She remembered it had just begun to boil when she
heard the shot in the library.
At this point Cameron saw Rintoul scribble something
on a scrap of paper and pass it to the Procurator. After
reading it the Procurator put a question to Mrs. Murchi-
son.
"Did you go at once to investigate?"
"Well, no, sir, not quite at once. You see, sir, I got so
flustered I ran back upstairs to one of the maid's rooms,
forgetting she had been sent for to Arrochmore, and that
it was the other maid's afternoon off; but I did try the
door as soon as I got downstairs again. Then when I ran
outside I saw Mr. Bray, and after we had tried the door
again and all the windows, he told me to ring up the
police."
Mr. Murray looked over questioningly at Rintoul.
Rintoul's nod brought an end to the housekeeper's ordeal.
"I'd like to see this Mr. Bray next," Mr. Murray said,
while completing his notes.
Mr. Bray took up his position before the table with his
hands behind his back, much as if he were about to face
a viva-voce examination for deacon's orders. The Pro-
curator, when he looked up, was quick to perceive the
young man's nervousness, and as if in pity, put his ques-
tions with a suavity and gentleness worthy of any
bishop's examining chaplain.
"Ah, Mr. Bray, you must have been alarmed to see the
housekeeper run from the house," he began.
"Yes, I was," Mr. Bray agreed. "I thought the house
had got on fire or something."
"You didn't hear the shot in the library?"
"Oh, no!"
"You heard no shot at all?"


126
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
"Oh, yes, I did—in the wood, of course."
The Procurator looked puzzled. Mr. Bray stood stiffly
awaiting further questions.
"In the wood?" Mr. Murray repeated, his eyes nar-
rowing. "Who was shooting in the wood?"
"Well, Richard was—Mr. Willoughby's son, who is
my pupil. Thought him a bit reckless with his new gun.
That's why I ordered him to leave the wood."
"Ah! Not your pupil in shooting then?" Mr. Murray
permitted himself a smile. "Do you think a shot might
have been fired in this room without your hearing it?"
Mr. Bray shifted about as if facing a poser from the
bishop's chaplain.
"Yes," he said at length, "before I came out onto the
lawn it might."
Again Rintoul pushed a scrap of paper along the table.
"Did you see any one leave the house as you came out
of the wood?"
"Nobody but the housekeeper," Mr. Bray replied.
"And after hearing her story you examined the
windows?"
"Yes. Then I sent Richard to Arrochmore for help."
Mr. Bray took his dismissal with a quite audible sigh
of relief. He had answered all the questions.
When he had gone the Procurator and the superin-
tendent put their heads together.
"The person who last saw him alive next, I think."
"Dr. Frossard." Rintoul nodded to Munro, who was
acting as usher.
The doctor entered, as self-possessed as his predecessor
had been nervous. He was a bulky man, so ponderous
that his movements seemed lethargic. Indeed, every-
thing about him, except his eyes, suggested he was only
half awake. His voice was deep and sonorous and his


MRS. BRENT SHOCKS THE FISCAL 12 7
slow utterances in marked contrast to the jerky replies
of Mr. Bray. But he took quite as long to make his
answers although the questions addressed to him seemed
quite as simple.
"Mr. Brent was in the library with you, I believe, when
Mr. Willoughby called?" the Procurator began.
"That is so."
"Did you have any talk together?"
Dr. Frossard stroked his chin several times before the
reply came.
"No. I was reading by the open window when the
young man entered and, as he did not look my way, I
said nothing."
"You thought there was something peculiar about
him?"
Dr. Frossard waved a hand.
"Not more than usual. We lived in two different
worlds, he and I. I am interested in classic antiquities.
We had nothing in common."
"So no word passed between you?"
Dr. Frossard shrugged in an almost foreign way.
"He did not even lift his head till Mr. Willoughby came
in. When he heard Mr. Willoughby invite me to go out
I saw him look up to see what I would say—that is all."
"Ah!" the Procurator nodded, "you think he was
anxious that you should accept?"
"I think he was anxious to have the library to him-
self," Frossard replied more promptly. "He was quite
cordial to Mr. Willoughby, and wished him a pleasant
drive."
"Just one more question," the Procurator said. "Did
you notice when you left the room whether the key was
in the lock or not?"
Frossard appeared to be surprised at the question.


128
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
"I would not notice a thing like that," he declared, as
if keys in doors were articles unworthy of notice by a
student of classic antiquities. Then he looked up sud-
denly like a man who recalls something to the point.
"Yes?" Murray said, observing the symptom.
"It must have been in the lock though," Frossard said.
"You see, after I got to my room I remembered some
notes I had been making and thinking they might get
scattered by the draught from the open window I went
down again to bring them away. But I found Brent had
locked the door." Frossard breathed heavily for a mo-
ment. "He—he gave no heed to my knocking."
It was clear he had difficulty in suppressing the annoy-
ance this remembrance brought back.
"What did you do then?" Murray asked.
"Went back to get ready for the drive, naturally."
"Let me see? You went down, I suppose, after Mr.
Willoughby had left the room?"
"Yes. He had come upstairs himself, to help with
Mrs. Brent. I heard him talking to her in her room
as I went down."
The Procurator bowed.
"Thank you," he said; "that is all, I think."
Dr. Frossard lumbered out of the room.
Mr. Willoughby, who followed the doctor, proved to be
more helpful. It was obvious as his answers proceeded
that the Procurator foresaw an end to the case so far as
he himself was concerned. Mr. Brent, said Mr. Wil-
loughby, was a musician with genius, though as yet more
full of promise than achievement. He was certainly,
like all artists, liable to fits of depression. But he had
certainly not revealed the extent of the depression caused
by the wound to his arm. This unusual reticence de-
ceived both the witness and his daughter, since the young


MRS. BRENT SHOCKS THE FISCAL 131
He put up his hand soothingly.
"If you have anything to go on, tell me. I don't ask
for evidence from you, I'll act even on any reasonable
suspicion."
Mrs. Brent lifted her clenched and trembling hand.
"My boy did not shoot himself," she declared. "I
know him too well to believe that."
"Now, now, Mrs. Brent, let's be reasonable," Mr.
Murray pleaded. "From the statements I have already
taken I know your poor boy locked himself into this very
room the moment he had it to himself. He was in a
depressed condition of mind about his arm. Once you
had gone away in the car for a drive with Mr. Willoughby
and Dr. Frossard he was alone in the house except for
Mrs. Murchison, the housekeeper. He had been waiting
till he was alone. He was so determined not to be dis-
turbed or interfered with that he not only locked the
door and pocketed the key, but also shut and bolted the
one window that was open when Dr. Frossard left the
room. We know he did these things independently of all
the statements made to me, for the police found the door
locked and every window bolted when they arrived about
fifteen minutes after the housekeeper summoned them."
Mrs. Brent shook her head with decision.
"All that makes no difference to me," she said. "I
don't pretend to know how it was done, but done it was,
by somebody."
The official patience seemed equal even to this.
"Suppose the impossible," he said. "Suppose it could
be done in the circumstances I have stated, who was
there to do it? Surely you don't suspect the house-
keeper?"
"There were others," she declared.
"Not in the house. There was, in fact, no one near


132 THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
the house at the time except the young gentleman, Mr.
Bray, who, I understand, is going to be a clergyman."
Mrs. Brent sniffed.
"Clergymen are not always what they ought to be,"
she said; "but I don't suspect him."
"Then whom do you suspect?" Murray demanded,
with just an edge of sharpness in his voice. "No one
else, I assure you, harbours any such suspicion."
The old lady fixed her glittering eyes on Cameron at
the end of the table and then extended her hand at the
sergeant.
"Ask him who he suspected," she cried. "Ask him
who he suspected when he watched over Eric all the
night after he was shot on the moor."
Rintoul intervened.
"We have good reason for believing there is no con-
nection between that shooting and this tragic occur-
rence," he said firmly. "We believe we know who was
responsible for the shooting on the moor, Mrs. Brent.
But the man who wounded your son on the moor shot at
him mistaking him for another. The man, that is, shot
at him because your son happened to be wearing Mr.
Willoughby's coat."
"I know better. The man who shot at my son was
well enough aware that he was wearing Mr. Willoughby's
coat. There were four who had seen him put it on and
who had been on the moor with him all day."
Quite a long pause followed this wild suggestion.
Cameron began to wonder and doubt, once more, about
his original suspicion of Cresswell. He had just decided
against her that Cresswell at least was an impossible
suspect when Mr. Murray, relaxing from his official atti-
tude, again leaned over the table towards the grim figure
in the wheel-chair.


MRS. BRENT SHOCKS THE FISCAL 133
"Mrs. Brent," he began gently, "I understand you do
not approve of our Scottish procedure in a case like this.
You would rather have a coroner than a Procurator-
Fiscal. Let me show you one advantage we have over
the coroner's court. We are here in private. You can tell
me anything you know. Whatever you say, you say
without the least fear of press publicity. You will find
me ready to take action on something much less than
evidence—even on suspicion."
Mrs. Brent seemed impressed.
"I'm not sure," she said in an altered tone, "just who
did it; but I am sure it was one of the four young men."
"And the motive?"
"Mary Willoughby," Mrs. Brent replied promptly.
"She's been coquetting with them all in turn, one after
the other."
Murray and Rintoul stared at each other. Here at last
was something new that might well have a direct bearing
on the case, though in a direction quite different from
that entertained by the young man's mother.
"A heartless little jade," Mrs. Brent interjected into
their thoughts. "She wasn't above flirting even with that
silly Mr. Bray."
Murray sat up.
"Yes," he said, "and am I to take it that your son
was affected by her conduct?"
"Of course he was. He was practically engaged to
her."
"He talked to you about it?"
"Never. He wasn't the sort to do that."
"Brooded over it?"
"He thought of nothing else. When he was lying there
in bed I could see it in his eyes. She counted for much
more to him after he had been wounded, you see. He
thought she was all he had left."


134 THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
The Procurator-Fiscal nodded wisely.
"Ah, Mrs. Brent, don't you now see what happened?
It would have been better if he had talked about it. He
brooded over it, and he brooded over the threatened end
to his career so long that—well, he thought that an end
had come to everything, and so he made an end to
himself."
"No, no!" she cried, with sudden vehemence.
"Never!"
"But yes," Murray persisted. "Why, look at this."
He disclosed the revolver lying on the table. "That
weapon, he died with it beside him in a locked room.
There's no getting over that, you know."
She gazed with awe-struck eyes at the heavy six-
chambered revolver.
"I never saw it before," she said. "It never belonged
to him."
"He evidently had it without your knowledge," Murray
said.
"Never!" she cried. "It's impossible. I've been too
often through his things not to know what he has and
hasn't got. Don't you believe that is his! When he was
transferred here from Arrochmore I packed up all his
things with my own hands, and I certainly did not bring
that with me."
"But he could have got it afterwards without your
knowing."
"How?" she demanded. "He has not been to Arroch-
more since the attack on him. He has only been outside
this house once or twice in my chair, and then only with
some one to wheel him in it."
The Procurator-Fiscal for the first time betrayed a
touch of uneasiness. He shifted about in his chair.
"You are quite sure of what you say?"
"Ask the nurse. Ask Mrs. Murchison. Both are quite


MRS. BRENT SHOCKS THE FISCAL 135
familiar with everything he possessed. Ever since he got
out of bed they've had to help him into his clothes. Mrs.
Murchison has had to do it since the nurse left. Yester-
day, as it happens, he changed his mind about what he
would wear, and when the housekeeper got the flannel
suit from the trunk in which it was packed, I took it on
my knees and felt it all over to make sure it was not
damp. You don't suppose I'd pass over a thing like that
without knowing it was there."
The Procurator balanced the heavy revolver in his
hand thoughtfully. Rintoul, who had been sitting with
his chin cupped in both hands, looked up.
"Some one might have brought it to him, mightn't
they?" he suggested.
Mrs. Brent's eyes flashed.
"Some one might," she said, "if they had had the
chance. I took care they had not. Ever since he was
shot on the moor and these people"—she waved her hand
at Rintoul—"began to look elsewhere, I knew he had
only me to watch over him." She bowed her head. "And
some one got him the very first time I left him alone."
Mrs. Brent's intense conviction impressed the Pro-
curator-Fiscal. He was fascinated, too, by the contrast
between her deeply-furrowed and mask-like face and her
glittering eyes. Incapable of moving much more than
her arms and head, those dark, almost youthful eyes, set
in the white, worn face, revealed the alertness of her
mind.
"You surely see," she said, with sudden quietness, "that
whoever shot him, simply had to leave that weapon be-
hind for you to find?"
They left this unanswered, but an almost imperceptible
sign from the Procurator drew the superintendent to his
side. They conferred together in whispers, the old lady
anxiously watching them. After a little the Procurator


136 THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
looked up.
"We're going to recall the housekeeper," he said. "You
may remain on the condition that you say nothing."
They all sat in a queer, stiff sort of silence till Munro
showed Mrs. Murchison in.
"Ah, Mrs. Murchison," Murray said, "sorry to bother
you again, but we have just one more question to put.
This weapon, do you think Mr. Brent could have had it
without your knowing he had it?"
Mrs. Murchison, who had been gazing in horror at the
ugly blue-black revolver, shook her head.
"Oh, no, sir," she said, "it isn't possible. With him
so helpless like that. I know what he had and hadn't got
as well as himself."
"You haven't seen it before then? I mean, don't you
think it might have been lying somewhere about the
house?"
"No, sir. I know what's in the house. Somebody must
have brought it here and left it behind on the very day."
When Mrs. Murchison had gone another conference
followed, this time behind the Procurator's chair, and
this time the sergeant overheard something of what
passed. The Procurator shook his head in response to
something the superintendent had murmured almost in
his ear.
"No," he said, "I don't like it. I don't like it at all."
"Why?" Rintoul's lips formed rather than uttered the
question.
"I don't know. I just simply don't like the look of it."
Then he turned to Mrs. Brent who, if she had not
overheard as much as Cameron, was quick enough to
divine a divergence of opinion between the Procurator
and the superintendent of police.
"This is a case for an expert," she said. "The police
here have no experience of any crime worse than poach-


MRS. BRENT SHOCKS THE FISCAL 137
ing. And it's my belief this crime was committed here
because the police in a place like this are so unsuspicious
and inexperienced."
Murray held up his hand protestingly.
"You are doing them an injustice," he said. "They
are as anxious to see you satisfied as I am myself. Now
look here, Mrs. Brent, I can show you an advantage our
Scottish procedure has in such a case. I can recommend
an expert to you who, if experience can do it, will set
your mind at rest, one way or the other. It's true," he
went on, "I do not know him personally, but I have heard
good accounts of his work in London."
Mrs. Brent sat forward.
"Oh, London! That's talking," she cried. Murray
continued as if he had not heard her:
"As a matter of fact I've just been hearing again about
him from a doctor friend of mine with whom he happens
to be fishing on Loch Laggan at the present moment.
Now—of course this is between ourselves, isn't it?" He
waited for her nod of assent. "Well, my suggestion is
that he should come and see you. You needn't be told,
I'm sure, that not another soul outside this room"—he
glanced first at Cameron, the only other present except
Rintoul—"must know who he is. He'd better come as
your lawyer—most natural that you should have to con-
sult your lawyer at this moment. If he consents I'll get
him to send you a telegram. You will show this tele-
gram to Mr. Willoughby, and I have no doubt that, in
the circumstances, no one would think it unusual if you
should ask for him to stay at Duchray for a day or two."
Murray brought his eyes back to the figure in the chair.
"What do you think of that?" he concluded.
Mrs. Brent struck the arm of her chair.
"Think of it?" she cried. "It's exactly what I want.
Now we'll see."


CHAPTER XIII
A ROOM IN LOCH LAGGAN HOTEL
That same night three men sat talking together in the
little smoking-room of the Loch Laggan Hotel. Pro-
curator-Fiscal Murray had reached the hotel about six-
thirty, and, hearing that Dr. Dunn and his friend were
not yet returned, but were certain to be back for dinner
at seven-thirty, seated himself on the wall with a pipe
to watch the loch for the returning boat. In the interval
since morning his mind was busy with the facts of the
case he had been investigating, and, until he heard the
boat grate on the shingle below, he remained doubtful
as to whether, after all, he would call in this detective
friend of Dunn's. He had made the promise to Mrs.
Brent on the impulse of the moment, moved, too, by the
knowledge that this Francis MacNab of whom he had
heard so much from Dunn, chanced to be on the spot.
Rintoul, on principle, had been against bringing him into
the case; but Rintoul later acknowledged that he himself
had reached an impasse. And, after all, the responsi-
bility for reporting on the case lay with the Procurator-
Fiscal.
But as soon as Dunn performed the introduction
Murray had little doubt that here was a man whom he
would trust. Indeed, it amused him to see how neatly
this MacNab would fit the part he had suggested as a
reason for his presence at Duchray. He looked rather
like a keen, shrewd lawyer, the junior partner in a firm
of high repute and long standing. Murray during dinner
rather doubted whether the trouble would not be to get
him to take up the case at all. As it happened, however,
luck was with him, for the pair had caught no fish that
138


A ROOM IN LOCH LAGGAN HOTEL 139
day and, as it turned out, had little hope of doing any
better so long as the hot, bright weather lasted.
The cautious Murray, however, when an adjournment
was made to the smoke-room, began to state his case as
a sort of after-dinner story likely to interest MacNab.
He told it, that is, in anecdotal fashion to illustrate the
kind of duty occasionally put on an official in his posi-
tion. And Dunn, though interested in the medical details,
obviously regarded it in the light in which it was pre-
sented. But out of the corner of his eye Murray noticed
before he had gone very far a change come over Mac-
Nab's face. It was not that he altered his lazy attitude
in the big arm-chair, but just a certain tightening of the
mouth which followed a swift exchange of glances be-
tween himself and MacNab. After that Murray knew
that, though Dunn might still think his visit was no more
than a friendly call, the detective was under no such
misapprehension.
"You see," Murray went on, "this woman, Brent's
mother, is convinced that he never shot himself."
Dunn nodded.
"That conviction of course has a psychological back-
ground," he said. "As his mother, he was so precious to
her, she is unwilling to believe he could destroy himself."
"There's more in it than that," Murray said. "She's
quite convinced there's a connection between what hap-
pened on the moor and what happened in the house.
What happened in the house she believes to be the com-
pletion of what was attempted on the moor. Well," he
went on, "of course when I heard from the doctor about
the depression he developed through fear that the injury
to his arm would put a stop to his career as a pianist, it
seemed a straightforward case of suicide in a moment of
mental derangement. In fact, I was quite prepared to be


140
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
satisfied on the evidence advanced with that obvious
conclusion till I came up against one little fact." Murray
looked over from Dunn, who was nursing his knee, to the
immobile figure lying in the big arm-chair.
"And that was?" MacNab's voice came.
"We simply could not account for the weapon. No-
body had ever seen it before. That began to interest me,
and I can tell you I went into it very microscopically
indeed. Well, whatever lies were told me, I made cer-
tain of this one fact at least: Brent neither owned such a
revolver nor had one in his possession, nor could have
had access to it since he got shot on the moor."
There was a silence for a time after Murray's last em-
phatic assertion, and through the open window from
across the road there came the sound of lapping water,
and the creak of an oar in rowlocks.
"Awkward fact that," came at last from the detective.
"I didn't like it at all, I can tell you," Murray nodded.
"Neither did Superintendent Rintoul. We've both spent
hours over that problem, but the fact stands. It's the
one fact among a number of curious happenings for which
no explanation could be found."
Murray began to fill a pipe with the air of a man who
has reached the end of his story, and Dunn, taking this
impression, went to touch the bell for drinks. MacNab
put his clasped hands behind his head.
"Quite interesting," he said musingly, "to have so many
odd things in one case."
Murray waited till his pipe was going.
"I know what you mean," Murray agreed, "but the
odd things were odd at first sight only; they were all
satisfactorily explained."
He was rather disappointed as he laid down the spent
match, that he had not evoked more than this lazy im-


A ROOM IN LOCH LAGGAN HOTEL 141
personal interest from the supposedly great detective.
"I'd like to hear just one odd detail in the case to-
gether with the explanation offered," MacNab said unex-
pectedly.
"Well, there's this: The sergeant who went out to the
scene of the accident on the moor came away certain
that Brent had been deliberately shot. And it's worth
while noticing as a warning what good grounds he had for
that conviction. He saw at once that the shot must have
been fired from a distance of some yards at least. That
made him pick up the wounded man's gun, and he dis-
covered both barrels still loaded. So he was sure Brent
had been shot by one of his friends. He was almost sure
he knew which of them it was, and even Rintoul himself
was convinced he was right. But that was all dispelled
when it was discovered that the friend suspected had
carried off Brent's gun in mistake for his own, and that
therefore it was this friend's gun in which the sergeant
had found the two undischarged cartridges."
"But," Dunn put in, "he didn't shoot himself; the
nature of the wounds would be proof of that."
Murray agreed.
"Oh, they soon knew that. You see, Brent had been
wearing a white Burberry belonging to Mr. Willoughby,
their host, and it is almost a certainty now that in the
mist he was mistaken for Mr. Willoughby by the friends
of a certain poacher who had got six months' on Mr.
Willoughby's evidence. So you see Mrs. Brent's notion
that what happened in the library was the completion of
what was attempted on the moor could not stand."
No comment was made on this until the maid had set
down the three glasses and departed.
"And the other curious happenings—they can be all as
neatly explained?" MacNab asked.


142 THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
"Every one of them," Murray said, "except that
damned revolver."
MacNab sat up for a sip at his glass. Murray eyed
him so hopefully that for the moment he forgot his own
drink. The whisky apparently suggested a smoke to the
detective, and he began to fill his pipe with leisurely
thoughtfulness.
"Suppose this is murder," he said at length; "the re-
volver simply had to be left behind in order to suggest
suicide."
Murray stirred impatiently.
"Of course," he agreed. "But you don't think it's
murder, do you?"
"If the owner of this revolver cannot be traced," Mac-
Nab said, "it certainly doesn't look like suicide."
Murray's right fist fell with a thud on his right knee.
"Nobody knows anything about the weapon," he de-
clared. "Nobody will own to having seen it before. It
never was in Brent's possession; his mother, the nurse
who must have known, never saw it. Mrs. Murchison,
the housekeeper, denies that it could have been lying
about the house without her knowledge. That revolver
was brought into the house by some one other than Eric
Brent."
Dr. Dunn sat up as if he now divined what Murray
was after.
"By George, MacNab," he said, "it sounds rather
like a case made to your hand."
MacNab gave one nod of unenthusiastic assent. "Well,
it's very interesting. If I weren't here on a fishing holi-
day, and if some one in a position to do so called me in
I certainly would have a try," he admitted between puffs
at his pipe.
The two others exchanged a swift glance.


A ROOM IN LOCH LAGGAN HOTEL 143
"Oh, come," Dunn said, "after all, the fishing is pretty
poor."
"And if Mrs. Brent is right," Murray added, "there is
a bigger fish to catch in this affair than ever came out
of Loch Laggan."
"Deeper water, too," Dunn suggested.
"I said, if one in authority called into the case."
Dunn turned round.
"Well, Murray, what about that? You are a Pro-
curator-Fiscal."
Murray smoothed his knee hopefully.
"Personally I'd be very glad of any help to get at the
truth," he said. "Indeed, I'm bound by my office to do
so. And I think Superintendent Rintoul would also wel-
come any efficient outside help, the case being, as he
admits, at a standstill. But I happen to know a far
greater authority than either of us is anxious for his
assistance."
Murray's smile puzzled both the detective and the
doctor, though Dunn alone gave any external sign of sur-
prise. He sat forward eagerly.
"Who's that?" he inquired, inwardly thrilling to the
guess that this far greater authority must be the Lord
Advocate at least.
"His mother," Murray replied. "His mother, who had
so little doubt about this being murder that she raised
doubts in me when I'd begun to be sure it was nothing
of the kind."
In the midst of Dunn's disappointment MacNab spoke.
"Very well," he said, "she can count on me."


CHAPTER XIV
DISCUSSION WITH RINTOUL
Next morning Dunn motored MacNab over for a con-
sultation with Superintendent Rintoul. As they ran along
the side of the loch there was nothing in the weather
to deepen the regret MacNab now felt over the consent
which had been wrung from him on the previous night.
It was a glorious day, with no clouds to veil the sun, and
the water lay clear and shining, every pine tree on the
mountain opposite standing sharp and distinct. Not a
hope for that kind of fish that day! But MacNab's
anticipation of a cool reception from Superintendent
Rintoul was not fulfilled. At first Rintoul was stiff
enough in spite of the Procurator-Fiscal's preparation.
And MacNab, quite understanding that Rintoul might
resent receiving outside help called in by the Procurator-
Fiscal, appreciated his attitude. But a chance remark of
Rintoul's eased the tension almost at once.
"I used to know a man of your name in Perth," he
said.
"In the constabulary?" MacNab asked, his eyes open-
ing quickly.
"Yes. He was an inspector in the county constabu-
lary," Rintoul replied.
"That was my father."
It was Rintoul's turn to open his eyes. He stared hard
at his visitor.
"Yes," he said. "Yes. I was wondering who you
reminded me of—in features, I mean."
MacNab laughed.
"Not in physique, of course. Ah, well!" he said with
a half sigh, "I'd have been in the police myself if he
144


146
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
the moor may well have been an attempt to stage mur-
der as a shooting accident."
When Rintoul opened his lips to speak MacNab held
up a silencing hand.
"Several things suggest a connection between the two
events. What's your yearly average of murders in this
district, Superintendent?" he asked.
Rintoul smiled.
"Can't call to mind any act of murder since Campbell
of Glenure was shot in 1752," he said with a chuckle.
"Well," MacNab went on, "isn't it rather a startling
coincidence that you should have not only two possible
murders inside a week, but two staged to look something
other than they were. Mind you," he added, "I'm only
arguing that if they were murders this attempt to dis-
guise them, as it were, seems to show the same mind at
work behind both occurrences."
While Rintoul was thinking this out MacNab con-
tinued. "After all, it's not certain that Brent was first
shot on the moor by the poacher. You found the gun in
the water at the very point where Haggerty crossed to
hide in the wood. I suggest he dropped it at the time he
crossed, and that it has been there ever since. If so,
neither this man Hugh Cameron nor any one else could
have used it to fire at Brent. You never found its sup-
posed hiding-place on the moor, although I understand
you searched every inch of ground. So I ask you to
reconsider that shooting party. Admittedly there was
lying to your sergeant about what happened that day.
This young man Toplis, when your sergeant discovered
the lie, explained it by saying he thought one of the party
had accidentally and unknowingly hit Brent. But was
that the real explanation? Psychologically, I find it dif-
ficult to believe. Isn't the impulse in such an accident


DISCUSSION WITH RINTOUL
147
to lash out at the perpetrator for his carelessness, not at
the moment to hide it from him and every one else?"
Rintoul, with head propped characteristically on his
hand, considered the question.
"Well," he hesitated, "it seems unlikely he'd keep his
mouth shut about it at the moment. Afterwards—yes;
but not at the moment when the other men arrived on
the scene."
"Quite," MacNab nodded. "Yet if this man Toplis
had himself shot Brent he could not have shown more
reticence."
"You're not saying you suspect him?" Rintoul said
quickly.
MacNab looked down once more at the plan in the
sergeant's note-book which lay before him on the table.
"You forget," he said. "All we're considering at this
time is whether there is a connection between what hap-
pened on the moor and what happened in the library.
My suggestion was that they may well form two chapters
in the same story—chiefly because the victim was the
same, with the villain of our story showing the same type
of cunning. To strengthen my theory we've been seeing
who had a chance of doing the deed on both occasions."
Rintoul's mental processes were being pushed hard.
To gain time he retrieved his cigarette case and struck
a match.
"Look here," he said after a thoughtful puff, "you say
the story has two chapters. So do we. Our first chap-
ter brings in Sam Haggerty and his capture by Mr.
Willoughby, and our theory is that Brent, wearing Mr.
Willoughby's white coat, was shot in mistake for him on
that misty day by one of Haggerty's friends, with revenge
as the clear-cut motive. Brent's death we regard as but
the epilogue to the story—self-inflicted in a moment of


DISCUSSION WITH EINTOUL
149
party."
"We had to drop that theory, however," the superin-
tendent protested, "when Mr. Cresswell cleared himself
in the matter of the two guns."
"But surely the fact that Mr. Cresswell was able to
clear himself did not clear the other members of the
shooting party."
"No. No one else chanced then to be under sus-
picion."
After Rintoul had sat for some time silently brooding
over the various possibilities to which his mind had just
been opened, MacNab rose and began to pace the room.
He did not think the less of Rintoul for being so easily
diverted from his original theory as to what had hap-
pened up on the moor. The superintendent, unlike him-
self, had no experience of this type of crime. The London
detective smiled to himself as he recalled Rintoul's reply
when asked the average annual rate of murder in his
district. He had cited the Glenure murder of 1752!
One murder was not much out of which to buy experi-
ence. And even that one was not only outside Rintoul's
district, but also before his time! The more MacNab
thought of it the more sure he felt that this was not a
crime native to the district: it bore the stamp of the
imported article.
MacNab had been amused also to hear of Sergeant
Cameron's reluctance to believe in a fellow-clansman's
guilt. But there were stronger grounds for rejecting the
theory that Brent was shot on the moor by Hugh Cam-
eron than clan feeling provided. Not the least of them
was that though the Highland temperament is passionate
and impulsive enough, it did not prompt men to nurse
and cherish revengeful feelings, nor lead them to seek
satisfaction in planned and cold-blooded murder.


THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
MacNab took a turn to the window and looked out,
smiling at himself as he remembered that the Glenure
murder itself might have stood as the one known example
of a planned, deliberate murder. Was it not more on
account of the Glenure murder being carried out delib-
erately, on a prearranged plan, rather than on its being
a murder that the whole country was ashamed of it to
that day?
"We ought to have given more consideration to this
man Toplis," Rintoul said.
MacNab turned and went back to his seat.
"Good," he said. "We'll consider him and the others
as well. But first of all I'd like to clinch the conviction
that those two events are connected. Observe that the
pretence of a shooting accident fails. It was an excellent
idea, and one that would be more frequently adopted, I
have no doubt, if murderers had more chances of being
included in a shooting party. There's no trouble, you
see, in accounting for the wound or the weapon. And it
was the first choice of the crafty mind behind this mur-
der. It happened to fail, so the second method had to
be contrived, a second shooting accident being out of the
question. Unfortunately it was a second-best method,
because a weapon—not the victim's own—had to be left
behind.
"The irony of the thing is," MacNab continued, "that
it would have taken us all in but for what this—this
devil had himself already done. I mean it might well
have passed for suicide if only Brent had not been
rendered so dependent on others that we know he never
could have had that weapon in his possession."
Rintoul waved a hand.
"You have enough excuse for labouring that point," he
said, "but I see it now. What do you suggest as our


DISCUSSION WITH RINTOUL
next step?"
MacNab unfolded the plan of campaign evolved by
the Procurator-Fiscal and himself in the hotel on the
previous night. Rintoul, when he heard of the scheme
for securing admission to the house in the guise of a
family lawyer, looked askance at MacNab.
"The face is all right, but the clothes will surely
hardly do," he said, glancing at the well-worn suit of
brown homespun and the heavy brogues.
MacNab, however, explained that he had already
wired for an outfit more suitable to his supposed charac-
ter. There would be plenty of time, since three days at
least had to be allowed for the exchange of letters be-
tween Mrs. Brent and the imaginary family lawyer.
"That will give me an opportunity for thinking over
the various suspects," he added.
"Me, too," Rintoul said. "What do you want us to
do?"
MacNab hesitated.
"Well," he said, "on the whole, it would be better if
you did nothing except to go on as if you were still after
this Hugh Cameron. Up at Arrochmore I suppose they
know you are after him for the affair on the moor?"
"Of course they do. Mr. Willoughby is himself taking
a great interest in that hunt. He rings up every morn-
ing for news."
"No wonder," MacNab said, "since he thinks it was
himself Cameron meant to shoot."


CHAPTER XV
WHO WAS THE MAN?
In the course of the next three days MacNab put in a lot
of hard thinking over the Arrochmore murder. His
friend, Dr. Dunn, must have found him rather a trial in
the evenings. Out on the loch it was not so bad, for there
was always the fishing, with the boatman ready to gossip
at the least opportunity. And if the boatman wondered
at the silent figure in the stern, at least the fishing was
bad enough to give himself and the other gentleman full
scope for cursing it.
On the evening of the third day, however, MacNab
appeared to have reached the limit of his boring process
of incubation. He became almost talkative. It was as if
he now wished to use poor Dunn as a whetstone for his
own wits. They had the little smoking-room to them-
selves.
"What I'd like to know," MacNab said abruptly, "is
who suggested that he should wear that white Burberry."
Dunn, who had never remembered hearing anything
about a white Burberry, betrayed no surprise. He knew
his man. This sort of thing had happened in the Peri-
gord case and several others.
"You would, would you?" he responded, as if he knew
all about it.
"If it comes to that, I'd like to know who first sug-
gested a shooting expedition on a mist-covered moor."
Dunn made a shot.
"Perhaps they were not two persons, but one," he
suggested.
MacNab continued as if he had heard nothing.
"I'm quite certain the moor is the right place to begin
152


154 THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
were hunting the moor for Haggerty's gun, Harwood was
fishing in the burn at the very spot where the gun was
found. Oh!" he went on, seeing Dunn stare at the plan,
"very likely it was merely a coincidence—only it's a
point to remember."
"Well," Dunn commented, "it's not easy to see how
Harwood could have done it—left his position in the line,
I mean, got down below Brent and shot him from there.
This fellow Toplis looks far the most likely of the lot,
from the position he was in."
MacNab was ready enough to agree.
"No, it's not obvious how Harwood could have done
it. But, on the other hand, I've yet to find a case in
which the criminal desired to leave his method obvious.
And that's just what's bothering me about Toplis. It's
so obvious he could have done it. He was on the spot;
he was the only one who did not obviously need to get out
of position; none of the others knew what had happened
till he gave the shout at the moment it suited him to do
so. Notice the position on the plan; it only marks the
spot at which he laid down his gun and cried the alarm;
he may have fired farther back, when much closer to
Brent."
"Who was shot on his offside," Dunn reminded Mac-
Nab.
"But if that was the one bit of subtlety Toplis em-
ployed, it's easy to explain. He had merely to draw
Brent's attention to something behind them. And ob-
serve this, Dunn: Toplis knew as well as any one else
that Brent was wounded in his left shoulder and arm.
How then could he say he thought the shot had come
from one of the others, who were all farther to the right
than himself?"
Dr. Dunn made no answer to the question; he had


THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
Dunn ignored the gibe. He had seen something for
himself.
"Then," he cried, sitting forward, "he must have got
the fright of his life when he discovered he hadn't made
so very sure after all. Wouldn't Brent have known who
hit him if it had all happened as you suggest?"
"Ay," MacNab admitted, "your finger's gone to the
weak spot, Dunn. When we pass from the physical to
the psychological, I mean. I went into that question
very closely with Rintoul. He hadn't taken it up very
minutely with the sergeant who went to the scene of the
supposed shooting accident, so we had the sergeant in.
I like the look of this Sergeant Cameron, not least be-
cause he was the one man who suspected foul play from
the start. Well, even he would not agree that any of the
party showed anything like fear or panic. In fact the
closest questioning failed to yield one trace of anything
but the concern and sorrow proper to such an accident.
As it happened, he saw most of Toplis, for he was the
young man who had gone down to guide them to the
scene. And Cameron, who, of course, talked with him
about the accident on the way up and thus had ample
opportunity to observe his demeanour, said he was per-
fectly self-controlled. Though he did show a certain
amount of dread, that was concerned with the fact that
they had all gone out, without Mr. Willoughby's knowl-
edge, on a day considered by their host unsuitable for
shooting. As you can imagine, I pricked up my ears
when I heard about the young man's dread, and ques-
tioned the sergeant closely about it; but the explanation
seemed satisfactory, especially as he happens to be Mr.
Willoughby's secretary. More than that, my doubts
would have been dispelled on hearing about the young
man's intense anxiety to get them as quickly as possible


WHO WAS THE MAN?
iS7
to the aid of his wounded friend. For it was Toplis also
who had run to find the doctor."
Dunn stared at the sheets of foolscap lying on the
table at his friend's elbow. They'had filled the brown
leather dispatch case lying at MacNab's feet. He knew
them to be the signed precognitions taken by the Pro-
curator-Fiscal at his inquiry four days earlier. Except
when out in the boat, MacNab's nose had maintained
contact with them more or less ever since. Dunn felt a
pride in those papers. No other detective could have
such assistance, nor any in Scotland in MacNab's posi-
tion had he not chanced to have a friend who knew the
Procurator-Fiscal.
"And you've got no further than that?" he said, dis-
appointed. "Didn't these papers tell you anything?"
"Not yet. I haven't examined them very thoroughly
yet."
Dunn, remembering MacNab's three days' absorption
in them, smiled.
"They just refer to what happened at Duchray," the
detective explained. "I'll have to wait till I get there
before thinking them out."
He picked up the dispatch case and began replacing
the precognitions. Then, as if there had been no inter-
ruption, he ran on:
"Of course Brent's statement shows us that the assassin
had really nothing to fear. Brent did not see what
fired—did not even know whether he had or had not
turned. Yet two people suspected foul play."
"Yes. This Sergeant Cameron suspected Cresswell
and Mrs. Brent some person unknown."
MacNab nodded.
"The police—wrong; the mother—right. I'm looking
forward to seeing this Mrs. Brent," he added. "She's


158 THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
rather a character, I'm told."
Dunn knocked the ashes from his pipe. MacNab
handed him the dispatch case.
"You might as well take this with you to-morrow,
when you go for your stay with your friend the Pro-
curator," he said.
"It's only three days," Dunn remarked; "then I hope
we'll be back here to fish under better conditions."
MacNab rose.
"Yes," he reiterated. "I'm looking forward to meet-
ing Mrs. Brent. Did I say she was rather a character?
Well, she is. Rintoul has fixed it up for me. We're to
have three days together, she and I. We can't pretend
that this law business will take longer than that; but
if I don't get on well at my own business she's to fall ill,
and be unable to transact any business till she's better."


CHAPTER XVI
THE SOLICITOR FROM LONDON
When MacNab descended from the train at the station
he perceived how perfectly Rintoul had carried through
his part of the scheme. MacNab had joined the train
two stations back, where Dunn set him down in the after-
noon before going on to Inverness. Hardly had he
stepped on to the platform before he was approached by
a young man possessing the attributes of a well-trained
man-servant, for he had evidently picked him out as the
guest for whom the Rolls-Royce was waiting outside.
While his things were collected the detective stole a
glance at himself, eyeing himself as it were from the
footman's point of view. His outfit, from the bowler hat
and the navy blue suit to the light grey spats, seemed to
have the right professional air about them. He passed
out content with himself.
He got a slight shock, however, on finding he was being
taken not to Duchray but to Arrochmore. Till he came
within sight of the great house he thought he must have
got mixed up in grasping the description given him by
Rintoul as to the respective position of the two houses.
On the doorstep he suggested a mistake had been made.
"Oh, no, sir," the footman said. "You are expected
here. Most of the house-party have gone away, sir, and
Duchray has been shut up."
MacNab followed the man in, rather disconcerted. He
found Mrs. Brent waiting for him in a small sitting-
room on the second floor. She had apparently been
seated in her wheel-chair at an open window with an
outlook on Loch Linnhe and the Ardgour Mountains be-
yond.
159


l60 THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
MacNab hoped much from this old lady, studying her
narrowly while he exchanged the commonplaces fitted to
their supposed relationship. Her whole mind appeared
to be preoccupied with thoughts of vengeance, even, so
far as he could see, to the exclusion of sorrow for her
loss. He discerned no trace of grief, though he did not
know to what extent she had given way to grief before
his arrival, and how much of her present self-possession
was due to reaction from it. As she talked her eyes
sparkled with lights, and though the face was worn and
lined, these lines seemed to be the marks of distant rather
than present troubles.
Abruptly her talk ceased.
"I think you'll do," she said with a nod of approval.
"I hope I look my part," he said, aware that if this
little woman had done all the talking he himself had not
done all the scrutinizing.
When she agreed that he did look the part, they fell
at once into a consideration of the real business for which
he had come.
"I was just wondering," he said, "if you had anything
to add to the statement you made before the Procurator-
Fiscal?"
"Nothing to add," she said, "except that I'm more than
ever convinced that what I told him is true. I feel it in
my very bones."
Although he did not think this was very much to go
by, he thought that she probably knew more than she
herself was aware of, the significance of which she did
not then guess. A little deft questioning might bring
more to light than she dreamed.
"You know," he said, "I'm inclined to share your view,
as against the police here, that the shooting on the moor
was an attempt on your ion's life, and that—what hap-


THE SOLICITOR FROM LONDON l6l
pened afterwards tells us we must look to some member
of the shooting party if we're to find the guilty man."
"Ah!" she cried, "I was right when I told that super-
intendent that what this case needed was a detective with
London experience. If the police here had done their
duty, none of them would have been allowed to leave
this house."
MacNab reassured her.
"That will make little difference. If we find out who
it is we'll soon get our hands on him."
From her he now learned that Harwood, Cresswell and
Joliffe had gone. This was what he had expected. The
secretary, Mr. Toplis, in whom he was at the moment
chiefly interested, was still there. Of the others there re-
mained only Mr. Bray, the tutor, and Miss Cresswell,
who was staying on with Miss Willoughby.
MacNab went at once to the point on which his hopes
at Arrochmore centred.
"On the question of motive, now, Mrs. Brent. If you
could throw any light on that," he suggested. "For in-
stance, had any of them any reason to—well, be hostile
to your son?"
"Ah," she said, "I know what you mean! You're
thinking of what I said to the Procurator about Mary
Willoughby. Well, she made them all more or less jeal-
ous of him. My son was an artist. Mr. Willoughby at
first didn't like to think of his daughter marrying an
artist. He was very much against the engagement. He
said artists always made bad husbands. He said an art-
ist's wife had always to take second, place to his art,
whatever it was. Mr. Willoughby is a business man in
a very large way." Her thin lips twisted into a distorted
smile of derision. "As if money didn't come first with
the business man," she scoffed. "But he gave way in the


162
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
end and invited Eric here. Indeed he quite changed his
views about my boy. The engagement was to have been
announced this very week."
MacNab waited while she used her handkerchief.
"Well," she resumed, "after that the trouble began.
I mean after we came here. Mary, of course, loved my
boy; there's no doubt of that. I admit it. The fights
she put up with her father over Eric were sufficient to
prove it. But Mary isn't musical. She loved Eric for
himself, and not for his genius. Of course he had to
keep in constant practice. When the others went out he
put in hours of work at the Steinway in the hall. She
stayed there with him at first, and I think in time she
got jealous of his music. I've gone into the hall—the
wheels of this chair are quite silent, you know—and I
have surprised her sitting beside him, stiff and rigid in
a chair, with such a look in her eyes! Well, I think she
got to feel that Eric was too sure of her. She started
trying to make him jealous. Oh! and how these men
played up to her. Not that it was play to them; they
were ready enough to be serious. Harwood, I've seen
him sitting on the back of the couch on which she was
seated, and he looking down ogling, head askew, and she
looking up, her eyes shining. Cresswell standing before
her, legs astride, playing the strong man, she round-eyed
with wonder and admiration at the tale he was telling
of his doughty deeds. How she played one off against
the other! Even that little Mr. Bray, the tutor—she
quite turned his head, too. I've seen him almost kneel-
ing before her, all a-flutter and agape, like a little curate
talking to a duchess at a church bazaar. She couldn't
leave even Toplis the secretary to Brenda Cresswell."
MacNab interrupted the outburst with a comment.
"You said nothing of all this to the Procurator."


164 THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
for a look at his surroundings, and if possible at some of
the people about whom he had heard so much. He was
idling about the hall, looking at the portraits of Arroch-
more's past owners, noting the position of the Steinway
grand over in the far corner, and generally acting the
part of a man interested in what he saw, when he was
joined by Mr. Willoughby. Had he not known from
Rintoul's casual description that this was his host he
would have quickly gathered as much from the easy, pro-
prietorial manner of his approach.
"Yes," Mr. Willoughby said after the preliminary ex-
changes, "it is a sad business that brings you here, Mr.
MacNab, but I hope you will find your visit not without
other interest."
MacNab, who could certainly share this hope, thanked
him.
"But it's all so new to me, this part of the country,"
he said with a grave smile which did justice to the occa-
sion, "that I must resist the temptation to prolong my
visit unnecessarily."
Mr. Willoughby waved a hand in a manner suggesting
that this was a temptation there was no need to resist.
"You surprise me in saying it is all new to you," he
remarked. "For though you have an English name, I
seem to detect something of the Scot in your accent."
MacNab smiled again.
"You have a good ear, Mr. Willoughby. I owe that
to my mother, who was a Scot."
Willoughby looked at the door.
"What about a saunter?" he suggested. "Or perhaps
you are too tired after your long journey. A chair and
a cigar in the smoking-room?"
When MacNab promptly agreed, Mr. Willoughby led
the way along the corridor to a pleasant room that seemed


THE SOLICITOR FROM LONDON 165
full of easy arm-chairs. But MacNab was disappointed
to find the arm-chairs unoccupied. While cutting his
cigar his host indicated the table littered with a fairly
complete array of current periodicals.
"You'll find this restful, I hope," he said, touching
the bell.
When the man appeared MacNab expressed a prefer-
ence for whisky, and Mr. Willoughby, when he had seen
him served, hovered about for a time, moving and re-
arranging the papers on the table. To MacNab he ap-
peared undecided whether to go or stay.
"Mrs. Brent seems to be bearing up wonderfully well,"
MacNab said, to fill up the silence.
"Wonderfully," the other agreed. "Of course, she isn't
new to this sort of thing," he added.
"You mean his father," MacNab said. "Yes, I've
heard about that. No more than a rumour, though. Our
firm only took over Mrs. Brent's affairs later."
Willoughby came over and slipped into a seat facing
MacNab.
"Yes," he said, "Harwood and Cresswell looked after
the old man's business affairs in those days. That's why
I know so much about it," he added.
MacNab looked up vaguely, like one who had missed
something obvious.
"Oh, Harwood and Cresswell is my firm, too," his host
explained; "in fact, their sons have been staying with
us here up to a day or two ago. You've heard, of course,
what led to the father's suicide?"
"Vaguely. Something about a patent, wasn't it?"
"Well, it followed a disappointment about a patent,
certainly. Harwood and Cresswell didn't get the thing
through quickly enough, and it appears some one else an-
ticipated the patent. He blamed them for that, quite


i66
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
unjustly, I believe. An erratic old fellow by all accounts.
Quite mad—so mad that if it hadn't been that patent it
would have been something else."
As he concluded, MacNab happened to be in the act
of sitting up to flick the ash from his cigar. He con-
trived to complete the operation without giving any out-
ward evidence of the sudden, shattering possibility that
had burst into his mind. Leaning back again and
stretching out his legs, he took a breath or two as if to
steady his voice.
"And, after all, I suppose the son was certain sooner
or later to do the same thing," he said, looking at his
host.
A queer little silence ensued. Mr. Willoughby looked
like a man who was feeling he ought to say something,
but was not quite sure what to say. Then in the midst
of the silence the door behind MacNab's chair opened,
and a voice came hesitatingly:
"Oh, I hope I don't intrude."
Mr. Willoughby almost jumped from his seat, but not
before MacNab noted the relief on his face.
"Certainly not, my boy!" he cried heartily. "I was
just going." He introduced Mr. Bray, patting him on
the back as he did so. To judge by the young man's
face, such heartiness from Mr. Willoughby was new to
him. He rather gaped after his employer as he left the
room. Then Mr. Bray collapsed into the chair just
vacated.
"Have a cigar," MacNab suggested genially.
"No, thanks," said Mr. Bray, "but I'll have a pipe, if
I may." From his pocket he produced a briar of large
size.
Somehow MacNab could not associate Mr. Bray and
a briar pipe. When the young man had filled and lit the


THE SOLICITOR FROM LONDON 167
pipe it seemed much too big for his face. It somehow
gave the same effect as if he had worn a hat three sizes
too large for him. He noticed MacNab staring, and re-
moved the pipe.
"I'm only practising with this, you know," he explained.
"I take it as part of my training for Orders, you know."
He took a few vigorous puffs to keep the thing going.
"Nothing like a pipe together for establishing friendly
relations with the men in a parish."
"Wouldn't a cigarette be easier for you?" MacNab
asked. The question received no answer for a moment
or two except an emphatic shake of the head.
"Cigarette no good for that. Has to be a pipe. Pipe
the only manly thing, if you know what I mean."
"Quite. I agree with you," MacNab nodded.
"You are from London, aren't you?"
MacNab agreed, feeling that Mr. Bray was practising
at friendly relations with himself as well as with the pipe.
"You don't like London, of course?"
This brought the briar from the prospective curate's
mouth in astonishment.
"Now, how on earth did you guess that?" he exclaimed.
"Really! You'd make a good detective, I think, if you
know what I mean."
MacNab shook his head as if the compliment were
too high-pitched.
"You give me credit for too much," he said modestly.
"You like being here, of course?"
"I do. I mean I did till—till—"
"Oh, quite. I understand. Very sad affair that."
"For the moment Miss Willoughby's quite broken,
you know. We don't see her now. Takes all her meals
upstairs in her room."
"Ah, yes, a terrible tragedy for her," MacNab said


i68
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
sympathetically.
"She'll get over it," Mr. Bray announced with an air
of professional authority. "Sad as it is, this tragedy will
turn out to be a blessing in disguise, if you know what
I mean."
MacNab's eyes expressed astonishment. He began to
be really interested in Bray.
"Well," he remarked in a tone of mild disagreement,
"as yet the disguise is far more evident than the blessing."
Mr. Bray pondered this while pulling at his pipe. He
sucked so strongly that moisture became visible at the
corners of his mouth. Suddenly he withdrew the pipe
and bent forward.
"You didn't know the man," he burst out. "He was
a bad man. Talk about disguise! He was the one who
wore it. He never let her see his real character. Had
she married him he would have made her life a hell.
Either that or brought her down to his own level. These
were the only two possibilities. She was made for bet-
ter things. Not one of the people here appeared to see
that but myself. She told me once she was so glad I had
come into her life, that I wasn't like any other men she
had ever known. And of course after that it was my
duty to do everything I could to help her."
"Of course," MacNab agreed. He was astonished.
What he had heard was, he thought, almost equivalent
to an unconscious confession. Had the foolish girl so
bewitched this young man that she had turned him into
a fanatic? It was easy to imagine her soulful eyes and
internal laughter while she was telling him he wasn't
like any other men she had ever met.
MacNab regarded the man lying back in his chair
with half-shut eyes now, still shaken by his emotional
outburst, and noting anew the small head, sharp nose


THE SOLICITOR FROM LONDON 169
and narrow face, thought it not altogether unlikely that
he was sitting with the man responsible for Brent's death.
Here was exactly that type of feeble intellect which,
tipped off its precarious balance by a pretty girl's hand,
could become convinced that evil was not really evil
when done for a good purpose. It was not the first time
MacNab had been in such a case; and he was well
enough aware of the almost superhuman cunning devel-
oped by such fanaticism. Good as such a man believed
his deed to be, it was a good he did by stealth, and had
no more desire to find it fame than the ordinary crim-
inal without his illusions.
A prolonged silence had followed the detective's mur-
mured assent to Bray's last words. The young man re-
clining in the big red leather arm-chair seemed to be
brooding over something. Over what? The thing it
had been his duty to do if he was to help Mary Wil-
loughby? MacNab broke the silence.
"I suppose you did, first of all, try to influence Brent?"
he remarked.
Bray came back as from a long distance, fluttering his
eyelids like one awakened from sheep. MacNab had to
repeat his remark. The tutor shook his head.
"No good! I did try, though. He just treated me
with amused contempt, if you know what I mean. He
couldn't be serious about anything except music, which
is a thing not worth being serious about, if you know
what I mean."
"Don't you like music, then?" MacNab inquired.
"I like the organ; it's the only instrument with a
moral purpose behind it." He thought for a moment.
"What I mean is that ordinary music merely rouses emo-
tions without directing those emotions towards any
worthy end."


170 THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
MacNab thought the time had come when he could
venture closer.
"Well, but aren't you wrong in saying Mr. Brent cared
for nothing but his music?"
"What else?" the tutor demanded curtly.
"There was shooting, for instance."
Bray twisted impatiently in his chair.
"He liked killing things, if that's what you mean. He
would have killed Miss Willoughby if he had lived—her
soul, if you know what I mean."
MacNab placed the stump of his cigar in the ash-tray.
"I wonder just why he killed himself," he said gently.
Bray shrugged.
"Possibly it was in a moment of self-revelation," he
suggested.
"Well," MacNab said, "I don't suppose you yourself
think that. I happen to know some people don't think
he killed himself at all."
As the detective brought his eyes round to the other's
face he could see, although for some time past the dusk
had been creeping into the room, that his words had
startled Mr. Bray. A greenish pallor overspread his
face, and he seemed to have gone suddenly limp. The
pipe fell from his hand, hitting the fender with a noise
that seemed to resound through the room in the silence.
"Feeling bad?" the detective inquired. "Have a drop
of this?" he suggested, touching the whisky decanter.
The tutor pointed to the soda syphon.
"A little of that, if I may."
MacNab splashed the soda into the glass.
"Do you know," Bray said as he took the glass, "you
quite made me forget myself while we were talking.
I'm not really in training for this pipe yet, if you know
what I mean. Smoked far too long," he added, between


THE SOLICITOR FROM LONDON 171
sips at the soda water.
MacNab stooped and retrieved the pipe.
"Perhaps a milder tobacco would suit you better," he
suggested.
The tutor did not seem to hear the suggestion.
"You were saying something about some people think-
ing that Mr. Brent had not taken his own life," he said.
The detective nodded.
"Oh, yes. Some people have suggested it was an acci-
dent. He may have found the revolver somewhere about
the room—hidden behind a book, let us say, which he
had pulled out; started playing with the thing, not know-
ing it was loaded."
MacNab saw such colour as the tutor's face possessed
come slowly back.
"Oh, I see," he said. He finished off his drink and set
down the glass. "Well, anyway, I think I'd better go
to bed now."
After he had left MacNab stood for quite a time, his
own unfinished glass in his hand, pondering the situa-
tion. But he had no feeling of triumph. There was a
sense in which this young man was as much the victim
as Brent himself. Innocently as she had no. doubt acted,
some responsibility for what had happened attached it-
self to Mary Willoughby. But it was to the tutor's
responsibility alone that the law would look.
With something like a sigh, as if it were nasty medi-
cine he was bound to swallow, MacNab finished off his
whisky and went to bed.


CHAPTER XVII
TABLE TALK
Next morning MacNab awakened with a sensation of
vague oppression. Through the open window, which
faced the terraced pine trees behind the house, the bright
sunlight streamed in, and on the pine-scented air there
floated the joyous piping and twittering of many birds.
He lay still for a moment or two, trying to track down
and account for his own sensation of sadness, which was
at such variance with his surroundings. Then he re-
called the previous night, and the unconscious self-revela-
tion of the young man Bray.
The Arrochmore murder was, then, a pathological case
—a case that concerned the doctor even more than the
detective. It would probably end not on the gallows, but
in a mental home. Nevertheless he recognized that he
would still have to go on with the case. He wished he
could drop it. He would like to be able to go to Mrs.
Brent and explain as he saw it the pitiful situation. But
he was not in this case on her account. He had taken
it up because Dunn had put pressure on him on behalf
of his friend, the Procurator-Fiscal, who was in difficul-
ties over it. He had to carry on and establish Bray's
responsibility, if only to free other innocent persons upon
whom suspicion might fall, and to whom suspicion might
cling for years to come.
That there was no evidence of Bray's presence on the
moor on the day Brent was shot there did not trouble
MacNab. He was not one of that class with whom a
theory once formed becomes a conviction; in other words,
he never tried to make facts bend to theory.
MacNab rose and dressed leisurely. He blamed Miss
172


174
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
hear you say grace."
Breakfast went on in silence for a time.
"Well," the man remarked, "even for you it isn't all
fun up here. You are at work with a tutor, aren't you?"
Dick's face darkened. He appeared to take the remark
as just the sort of unpleasant reminder one might expect
from a gloomy lawyer like the man opposite.
"Bray is an ass," he said shortly; "not a funnny ass,
you know, but just what you'd call a—a nagging ass."
"Contentious, you mean."
Dick frowned thoughtfully.
"Doesn't that mean fighting?" he inquired.
"Well, yes."
"Then it's not the kind of ass I mean. Bray hasn't
any fight in him. He's—he's just a nagger about things."
MacNab nodded.
"Conscientious—that's the word."
"That's it! Always preaching at a fellow. And he's
such a funk." A sense of his own wrongs triumphed for
the moment over his taste for bacon and eggs. He laid
down knife and fork. "Look here, sir," he continued,
"how could a fellow like me have any respect for a fel-
low who's more afraid of a gun than any girl?"
The stare of incredulity with which this was received
was far from being assumed. MacNab believed he had
well-founded reasons for believing Dick's assertion to be
incorrect. The boy's face flushed up.
"You don't believe he's like that? I tell you he is,
he is! If he'd only leave me alone when we've finished
with that rotten arithmetic. But he won't. He's so in-
fernally con-conscientious, he thinks he has to watch
over me all the time. Even when I'm out with my gun.
It's then he gives himself away. He will come with me;
but he's so frightened, he always keeps well in the rear."


TABLE TALK
175
Pausing for breath, Dick seemed to be seeking for a con-
crete instance with which to convince his listener. "Why
yes, there was that day Brent shot himself, put us all
into mourning, stopped all our fun and brought you
here. Well, after lunch I took out my gun and went
into the wood to have a pot at the rabbits. He insisted
on going with me, and followed me all the time."
"Not followed you, surely!"
"I swear he did. Even when I'd stopped shooting as
we came down on Duchray he kept behind. I had only
a single cartridge left by then, but I'd got so fed up with
him that I thought I'd use it to give him a fright. So
as soon as I got into the open I turned round and fired
back." Dick put his head up and laughed at the mem-
ory. "He cowered behind a trunk till I shouted to him
and told him I hadn't another shot left. That was when
Mrs. Murchison ran out squealing for some one to come
and help her." Dick breathed heavily. "Would you
believe me, she ran past me as if I hadn't been there
to grab hold of that wretched funk Bray."
Dick was a poor reader of faces if he did not recognize
how deeply he had impressed his listener. It was Mac-
Nab's turn to lay down his knife and fork. But he had
still to make certain.
"And he had followed you about like that for the last
hour?" he suggested.
"Ever since lunch, I said," Dick corrected. "The beg-
gar hadn't once let me out of his sight for almost three
hours." Dick nodded, resuming his work at the bacon
and eggs, and leaving the other to ponder Bray's enor-
mity.
If the boy had not now become so engrossed in the
contents of his plate it might have given him a pleasant
surprise to perceive how MacNab's face had brightened.


176 THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
It might have surprised Dick more if he had known he
had just presented his tutor with an entirely satisfactory
alibi in a charge for murder then hanging over him. For,
to say no more, Brent had certainly been alive, had, in
fact, talked to Dr. Frossard and Mr. Willoughby him-
self while those two inseparables—Dick and his tutor—
were together on the hill behind the house.
So the whole case was in the melting pot again! He
no sooner perceived this than the door opened and Miss
Cresswell entered.
MacNab divined who she was from her explanation
that Miss Willoughby was having her breakfast in her
own room. He had little time to do more than exchange
a few formalities with her before the door again opened,
and he found himself bowing across the table to Mr.
Toplis, the secretary. To judge by the way the red-
headed young man bent over and attended to Miss Cress-
well's wants, he must have returned to his old allegiance.
MacNab was glad to notice he himself received no more
attention from him than any lawyer's clerk whose pres-
ence had to be just tolerated.
Brenda Cresswell was a strongly-built, athletic type
of girl, whose dark, closely-cut hair and clear brown
eyes accorded well enough with an open-air life, even if
her lips and her plucked eyebrows suggested something
more exotic. Till Mr. Willoughby himself entered Dick
did most of the talking.
After the usual kindly inquiries as to his guests' com-
fort, Mr. Willoughby turned to his letters while the secre-
tary attended to his preferences at the sideboard. Once
his father's eyes were on the letters, Dick slipped from
the room. Nobody spoke while their host went through
his letters. MacNab began to adjust his mind to the
new situation created for him by the information just


TABLE TALK
179
But who else was there left open to suspicion? Mac-
Nab moved to the edge of the terrace to look over the
tree-tops on the lower slopes to the world beyond. It
seemed as empty of suggestion as the contents of his own
mind. Gazing on the great stretch of the Loch Linnhe
and the hills beyond, his lack-lustre eye took in nothing
of what he saw. In his mind's eye he was looking into
the little sitting-room in the Loch Laggan Hotel, seeing
once more the Procurator-Fiscal urging him to take up
this case. He remembered that official's face flushed with
hope, the eyes bright and pleading. Murray's faith in
him was, of course, based entirely on what he had heard
from Peter Dunn.
And now, as the reverse of that picture, he conjured
up another: a disappointed and disallusioned Procurator-
Fiscal and a discredited friend. Horrid doubts began to
assail him. What if there was no connection whatever
between the shooting on the moor and the death in the
library? What if Brent's death had been a case of sui-
cide after all? There was that locked door, for instance,
with the key in the dead man's pocket. And the shot
overheard by the housekeeper with no one within call
except Bray, who had certainly been cleared by the boy
Dick.
But no! All that left the mystery of the revolver un-
answered. Somebody either carrying that weapon, or
knowing where to find it in the house, entered the library
at some moment after the car containing Mr. Willoughby,
Dr. Frossard and Mrs. Brent had left, and while the
housekeeper was standing waiting for her kettle to boil,
had found Brent in the library in the act of writing that
letter, and shot him dead. As for the letter, the murderer
certainly had not stopped to read it. MacNab was sure
of that, not only because it had been found on the floor


l8o THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
under the body, but chiefly because it was clear the man
had to follow quickly on his preconceived plan, for he
had provided himself with a duplicate key of the door,
and so was able to place the other key in his victim's
pocket. In other words, he had no time to spare.
MacNab had studied the plan of Duchray House pro-
vided by the police, and knew that close as the library
door was to the main exit, the man ran a terrible risk of
being seen before he was able to lock the door and turn
round the corner of the house. But was the risk, after
all, so great? If he knew the house well he would know
that the housekeeper had a much longer way to come
than he himself had to go. Yes, and even supposing he
heard her scurrying footsteps behind him, and knew she
had seen him, he had only to explain that, hearing a
shot in the library as he came to the door, he had tried
to enter, and finding the door locked, had been going out
to try the windows. That explanation, especially as the
key of the door was in the dead man's pocket, would
serve, even had Mr. Bray and Dick appeared on the
scene two minutes earlier.
Luck had certainly been on his side. How heavily the
scales had been weighed in his favour this unknown must
himself have recognized when the contents of Bray's let-
ter came to be known.
MacNab turned away and, re-lighting his pipe, took
a leisurely stroll along the pathway connecting the two
houses. It was the first chance open to him for seeing
the house of the tragedy. He had no excuse for seeking
an entrance to the library then, but he intended to force
an entry that night, and, of course, there was nothing to
prevent his having a look at the exterior now.
He liked that path along the wood-side with its pano-
ramic outlook on the Western seas and mountains. A


TABLE TALK l8l
good place for thought it must have been to Hanging
George, the Lord Justice General, who had made it. He
liked to think that so great a man had pondered crim-
inal cases there; but he doubted if a detective before
himself had ever done so. With a wry smile MacNab
wondered how far the judge had to saunter along its half-
mile length before coming to a decision.
He found himself in front of Duchray no nearer a
decision than when he started.
♦


CHARACTER AND MOTIVE 183
of view of character, mentally running over all the details
and associated circumstances which bore on that point.
It was, indeed, part of Francis MacNab's method, when
confronted with a complex case of this type in which
there were many possible suspects, to study it as care-
fully from the character point of view as he did from
that of motive. He considered this procedure to be far
surer, if more slow, not only because character is a per-
manent possession while motive is variable, but also be-
cause he knew that even when a strong motive for the
deed is clear as daylight, the question as to whether the
man with the motive will yield to it is decided by his
character.
MacNab, standing there looking at the house which
had been the scene of the crime, could have kicked him-
self as he recalled how very nearly he had been betrayed
into following exclusively the clue of motive in the case
of Mr. Bray. Bray had as strong a motive for the mur-
der of Brent as had moved Charlotte Corday to murder
Marat. Indeed, of the two his motive was the stronger,
for while the woman acted in the interests of a political
party, Bray could have acted in the interests of a woman's
soul. He certainly hated Brent as much as the French
woman hated Marat. If the one acted and the other
did not, it was not motive but character that in each case
decided the issue.
Seeing no one about, he went over to have a closer
look at the house. His intention was to get inside it
that same night. Having no reasonable excuse for asking
for the keys, and unwilling to risk awakening any sus-
picion as to his real business, he intended to force an
entry, and for that reason wished to know in advance
the type of window catch employed, and the safest win-
dow on which to operate. He discovered with satisfac-


184
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
tion that all he needed to push the catch was a thin-
bladed knife, but it was not easy to select the particular
window. Finally he decided on the gable window of the
library, for that window still bore the marks of Rintoul's
efforts around the outer woodwork of the catch. Mac-
Nab believed in walking in another man's footprints
wherever that was possible. Besides, with the blinds
drawn as they were, it was not possible to see inside, and
he could not tell whether the door of the library was
locked or not.
Then as he stepped back from the window he had a
shock. Miss Cresswell, hands behind her back, in thought-
ful meditation, was coming straight towards him from
the far end of the house. She hadn't seen him yet. But
he judged it better to run no risk. He strolled towards
her.
"I was just wondering," he remarked, "how long it
takes for a house shut up like that to develop damp."
At the sound of his voice the girl gave a start of sur-
prise and a little cry.
"How you frightened me," she said, with a little breath-
less smile. "I thought I was alone."
After expressing his regret he pointed at the house.
"It interests me as a lawyer, you know," he said. "I'm
told it was built by a former great judge as a retreat in
which he could consider his difficult cases."
"Part of it was," she corrected. "That long, low,
white-washed section which now forms the kitchen
offices."
They stood for a little on the grass, talking about the
house and its former owner. MacNab felt drawn towards
Miss Cresswell. Whether or not the presence of Wil-
loughby had been a silencing influence at breakfast he
could not tell, but now she was talkative and friendly.


CHARACTER AND MOTIVE
185
There were, it appeared, many surviving legends about
Hanging George. As they walked back together she
said:
"I'm interested in him, too, just because my own father
was a lawyer. He made this path, too, you know."
When they reached the garden seat opposite the ten-
nis courts MacNab stopped and, glancing at his watch,
explained he had yet an hour to put in before Mrs. Brent
would be ready for him.
"I think I'll pass it here with my pipe," he remarked.
She went off with a pretty gesture of her hand. She
moved nicely. He watched her go with approval, and
then, sitting down, took out his pipe.
He was conscious of being at close quarters with his
problem. All that had gone before was no more than
preliminary skirmishing. It was very quiet where he
sat. Not a sign of life anywhere beyond the occasional
crowing of a cock pheasant in the wood behind, and, ex-
cept for the great white clouds deploying lazily among
the mountain tops on the far side of the Loch Linnhe,
not a sign of movement anywhere else.
For a long time his thoughs naturally circled among
the hard facts in the case, like the clouds among those
hard mountain peaks on the horizon. One after another
the various persons possibly involved passed under re-
view. From the nature of the murder, he knew the
kind of character he was in search of. This was no im-
pulsive deed of violence, but a predetermined and pre-
arranged crime, the work of a subtle, calculating mind
—a man who could wait patiently for his opportunity,
and yet be swift to take it when it came. His first chance
came on that misty day on the moor; his next on the
very first occasion when his victim happened to be left
alone. Yes, a man determined, patient, unscrupulous,


i86
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
masterful, alert—these were the qualities such a crime
demanded, in addition, of course, to a perfect knowledge
of the surroundings and the precise position of all the
other persons likely to be about at the moment when the
crime was committed.
And, having clarified his mind as to the character of
the unknown man he was in search of, MacNab next
passed under review the exact situation of every possible
suspect at the moment when the crime was committed.
From Rintoul he had learned that the housekeeper's call
came through at a quarter to four. Allowing fifteen
minutes for her investigations and for Bray's which fol-
lowed, that fixed the murder within a minute or two of
half-past three. Where, then, were all these people at
that time? MacNab took out the note-book into which
he had transcribed all the relevant facts obtained either
from Rintoul's report, or the Procurator's precognitions.
Farthest away at the time, undoubtedly, were Mr.
Willoughby, Dr. Frossard and Mrs. Brent, for they had
left in a car almost half an hour before, and a car can
move quickly. How quickly Mr. Willoughby's chauf-
feur moved his master's car that day MacNab perceived
when he came to consider Cresswell. It was from Rin-
toul himself that the evidence came as to Cresswell's
position, for Rintoul had overtaken Cresswell on the
high road, returning with a box of tennis balls which
the others, being short of balls, had persuaded him to go
and buy in the town. And at the time the car passed,
Cresswell, Toplis and Miss Cresswell were knocking a
ball about on the tennis court, Joliffe and Harwood in
deck chairs, looking on while waiting for Cresswell's re-
turn with the tennis balls. It appeared that the tennis
courts not being netted, many balls got lost in the
bushes or disappeared down the slope on the other side


i88
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
he was amazed to see how strong a case could be made
out against him.
He was obviously a dominating, masterful type of
man. MacNab remembered that gesture with which he
had pushed aside his letters at the breakfast table, and,
small detail as that was, he had little doubt the man
had been accustomed to do the same with human beings.
He recalled, too, the hush that followed his entrance, the
look the others had cast on his face, as if to read his
mood. Even the unobtrusive way in which his son had
slipped from the room was not without significance. And
then the relentless fashion in which he had pursued,
caught, and got a conviction against the poacher, Hag-
gerty, was in itself evidence of his determined character.
As for motive, that certainly was not far to seek. A
man of much less strength of character than Willoughby
might well object to see his daughter the wife of a man
whose father had committed suicide. Willoughby had
objected to the engagement at the start, on the score that
artists made unsatisfactory husbands, but had later given
way. Had he really or only pretended to give way? Had
Brent been invited to Arrochmore simply because it was
a place in which there would be excellent chances of
making away with him under conditions least likely to
awaken suspicion?
None of the other members of the house party liked
Brent. Willoughby alone among the men was supposed
to like him. Yet MacNab judged from all he had heard
about the young man that he was not exactly a likeable
person. True, Brent might very well have presented a
very different side of his character to Mary Willoughby's
father from that which he had shown to Dick's tutor.
But Willoughby was far too shrewd to be taken in in
such a matter. If, then, Brent at all merited the dis-


CHARACTER AND MOTIVE
189
favour in which he was held by the others, it was a cer-
tainty that Willoughby's liking for him must be a mere
pretence. But a pretence for what purpose? MacNab
recognized that as host Mr. Willoughby had not the free-
dom of the others in showing their real feelings. He had
a duty to his guest, and MacNab considered it probable,
from the treatment he had himself received, that in this
matter Willoughby would be rather punctilious. Still,
that need only mean in Brent's case a little more effort
and restraint than had to be exercised in playing the
good host to the others. And it was precisely the clear
evidence of the capacity for restraint in the Duchray
murderer which had first taken MacNab's eye. That
man was one who knew how to bide his time. He had
waited for the favourable day on Keppoch Moor. When
the single shot failed, he had waited for his next chance,
and took it only when it seemed safe.
More than that, there was another item in the count
which seemed not without significance. Brent's father
had committed suicide. How easy to suggest that the
son had merely followed his father's example! Was this
the reason why Willoughby last night had been so ready
to explain how and why the father took his own life?
MacNab had to steady his whirling head by trying to
consider all that told against the theory of Willoughby's
guilt. There was evidence that Willoughby had not been
on the moor at the time of the shooting, and there was
what looked like conclusive evidence that he had been
far from Duchray at the time of the murder. There was,
in a word, in each case that with which the man who
plans a murder of deliberation is most anxious to pro-
vide for himself—an alibi. And it did not escape Mac-
Nab's notice that Willoughby was the one man among
all the possible suspects who had an apparently complete


190 THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
alibi for both occasions. And each alibi, too, was one
that, as it were, proclaimed itself. It was perfectly well
known that Mr. Willoughby had gone to Inverness on
the day of the Keppoch Moor affair, and there was even
the murdered man's mother, who could testify to his
absence at the time when her son was shot dead in the
library. But, as many a criminal who thought himself
safely sheltered under this cloak has discovered, an ap-
parently perfect alibi is as likely to draw rather than
avert suspicion on himself; and an alibi, if upset, has
also the disadvantage of proving the crime to be one not
of momentary passion, but of deliberation.
MacNab, glancing at his watch, rose to his feet. A
certain sense of excitement came to him, something like
what the hound must feel when he first scents the fox,
or the angler when he sees the snout of a big fish break
the water. He did not think much of the Keppoch Moor
alibi, anyway. Willoughby might have been to Inverness,
but he was not so far from the moor as that about the
time of the shooting. Hugh Cameron, the navvy, had
seen him on the road. In testing Hugh Cameron's alibi,
the police had unconsciously been also testing Wil-
loughby's. And in making it certain that Cameron could
on foot have travelled from that spot on the moor to
where he had been seen by Willoughby, they had made
it evident that Willoughby in his car could have covered
the distance much more easily.
Even the lie told by Toplis fitted better into a theory
of his employer's guilt than anywhere else. When his
untruth was discovered that young man had said he had
acted as he did because he thought Brent had been un-
wittingly shot by one of the party. But if Toplis, who
had been walking nearest to Brent, had seen something
—Willoughby among the bushes possibly—it was at least


CHARACTER AND MOTIVE
191
as likely that he would lie for his master's protection as
for any of the others. Well, Mr. Toplis must be put
through it once more. MacNab reperused the statement
Rintoul had given him which explained how his sergeant
had come to discover the lie told him by the secretary on
the moor. No very expert liar, the red-headed youth
could be, if he could be so readily found out as all that.
MacNab hurried along the path with a light step to
his appointment with Mrs. Brent. True, Willoughby's
second alibi seemed a much harder nut to crack. The
time at which the shot in the library was fired had been
established beyond any shadow of doubt, and it was
equally certain that Willoughby was miles away at that
moment. For all that MacNab went on, fortified with
the conviction that if Willoughby were the guilty man
there must be a discoverable hole somewhere, even in
that alibi.


CHAPTER XIX
AN IMAGINARY GAME OF TENNIS
v
Mrs. Brent's lively little black eyes were on his face
as soon as the door was opened.
"Well?" she demanded, her hand indicating a chair.
She was too eager fof news to wait until he had seated
himself. "What progress? Who have you seen? What
do you think?" she demanded again.
Inwardly MacNab marvelled over her absorption in
the one thing that had become the all-engrossing interest
in her life—this thirst for revenge. Indeed, it was more
than her chief interest—it was a passion that burned.
He read as much in her burning eyes and in the tension
of her hands on the chair. Possibly her helpless condi-
tion had something to do with it—as much, perhaps, as
her naturally dominating will. Reduced to a state of
physical inactivity, that strong will raged within her
like some wild animal robbed of her cub while shut up
herself in a cage. But MacNab had merely been waiting
till the door was shut. He sat down beside her by the
window.
"I had a nice breakfast," he said, adding quickly as
he saw the frown come to her eyes, "It gave me much
food for thought."
"Make anything of it?" she asked.
"Well," he admitted, "the process of digestion is not
yet complete; but I'm fairly certain of one thing, and
that is that the secretary, Mr. Toplis, knows more than
he has ever told. More than that, I believe that com-
plicity in the affair is narrowed down to one of two men,
one of whom may well be Toplis himself."
"And the other?" she inquired.
193


AN IMAGINARY GAME OF TENNIS 195
"Are you quite sure of that?" he asked. "Forgive me,
Mrs. Brent, but this may be more important than you
imagine."
"It's quite true," she said. "Mary came over after
lunch to see Eric; Toplis was with her, but didn't come
in. She said the others would be playing tennis all the
afternoon, and that if I liked to go for an airing in the
car she would wheel Eric in my chair along to the tennis
court, where he could be looked after and have tea with
them later."
"But—Dr. Frossard?" MacNab reminded her.
"Oh," she explained, "his going was an afterthought.
When Mr. Willoughby arrived in the car he found Dr.
Frossard in the library and more or less forced him away
from his book and his easy-chair. Of course he was un-
willing. He grumbled to me about it afterwards in the
car, saying there was quite enough fresh air coming in
at the study window to satisfy him."
"I see," said MacNab.
"Afterwards Mr. Willoughby explained to me that he
had invited Dr. Frossard because he saw that Eric
wanted to have the library to himself. In fact he told
me Eric had thanked him as soon as Dr. Frossard went
upstairs to get his things."
MacNab bent forward.
"But, Mrs. Brent, wasn't your son going out to the
tennis courts with Miss Willoughby?"
The question evoked a deep sigh.
"Ah, if only he had!" she said. "When they carried
me downstairs, and I saw my wheel-chair had been re-
moved from its place beside the library door, I thought
he had already gone."
"So you never knew he had stayed on in the library
till—till afterwards?"


196 THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
"Of course not. Mary explained later that after she
had seen me she went to him with the suggestion about
coming in my chair to the tennis, telling him he could
have the chair as I was going for a drive. But he re-
fused to go—said he wanted to be alone." Mrs. Brent's
voice caught at this memory, and there was a pause
while she drew out her handkerchief. "The girl after-
wards said she Was sure Eric was angry because he saw
Toplis outside waiting for her. But she didn't tell me
about his refusal at the time, because she was afraid I
wouldn't go for the drive, and she wanted me so much to
go. Now," Mrs. Brent concluded, getting a grip of her-
self again, "perhaps you will tell me to what all this
leads?"
MacNab prevaricated.
"Well," he said, "it more than ever forces me to be-
lieve that Mr. Toplis knows more than he has yet re-
vealed."
"Then don't you think the time has come for telling
Mr. Willoughby? He certainly could make the young
man speak out."
MacNab almost jumped from his seat.
"No!" he said in a voice the old lady had not yet
heard.
"But—" she began protestingly. He cut her short by
rising from his chair.
"I throw up the case if you do," he declared. "I give
it up now unless you undertake to say nothing under
any circumstances to any person whatever."
His unexpected vehemence startled her. But she was
not the kind of woman to be easily suppressed. Indeed,
after a moment in which her eyes hardened and the
muscles tightened about her mouth, it looked as if she
might order MacNab from the house. Then she thought


AN IMAGINARY GAME OF TENNIS
197
better of it. He saw her face relax. Probably she di-
vined not only that he knew more than he had said, but
also that it was something even she could not make him
divulge. At any rate, from that moment Mrs. Brent had
a deeper respect for him. Like most strong-minded
women, she respected men who were at least as deter-
mined as herself.
"Very well," she said mildly after an interval. "With
your experience one must suppose you know what you're
doing."
Her capitulation relieved MacNab's mind, for he now
recalled his undertaking to the Procurator-Fiscal, Mur-
ray, on whose behalf he was really acting.
"I must take the responsibility of handling this man
Toplis myself. Mr. Willoughby might easily let out
something which would put him on his guard," he said
with decision—a decision born of his conviction that that
was precisely what Willoughby would do if given the
chance.
"Well," she said, "an idea came to me after I awoke
this morning. If you suspect Toplis of sheltering any
one, I think it's most likely to be young Joliffe."
"Joliffe? Why?" he cried in his surprise, for this was
a name which so far had attracted little of his attention.
"Because Joliffe was his friend. He was invited here
on that account. No one, I gather, knew anything about
him except Toplis."
MacNab found the suggestion unwelcome. He didn't
like this introduction of a new aspect at that stage. It
made him feel like the tired traveller who turns a corner
on his road and finds an unexpected extra mile still be-
tween him and his destination. Yet he felt bound to
consider Joliffe, though he did so now only with the
view to a quick elimination. But Joliffe, he found,


198 THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
bothered him at once. He had been within striking dis-
tance both on the moor and at Duchray. True, on the
moor he occupied the position farthest away from Brent.
But even from his own story, as given in the police re-
port, he had lost touch with the others. That is to say,
he had been out of their sight for quite a time, since he
was the last to arrive on the scene after Brent fell.
The sergeant had suspected Cresswell mainly, it
seemed, because Joliffe had said he lost sight of Cress-
well at the burn. But that also meant that Cresswell
lost sight of Joliffe at that important spot. So both
men had identical chances of creeping down the burn to
get within the necessary range of the victim. Of the
two, Cresswell had drawn suspicion, because he was the
only one who, after the shooting, came on out of the
mist carrying his gun. Suspicion in his case was legit-
imate enough till the mistake about the two guns had
been cleared up. But, after that, why had not Joliffe
been considered?
The fact that he arrived on the scene without a gun
proved nothing either way, for since he came in last he
was the man who had most time to get back after shoot-
ing Brent, drop his gun in the forward position shown
on the sergeant's note-book, and then come down again
to look for the others, as he had said. Surely, of the
two, Joliffe was the more suspect. To arrive on the
scene without a gun was exactly what a guilty man would
prefer to do. The fact that Cresswell alone came up
with his gun told, if anything, in his favour, since, if not
innocent arid unsuspecting, he could so easily have
dropped it as all the others had done.
It looked as if the police had blundered about more
than Cresswell's gun. With apparently much astuteness
this sergeant had picked up what he assumed to be


AN IMAGINARY GAME OF TENNIS 199
Brent's gun, and on finding two unspent cartridges in
the breech, concluded, rightly enough, that the man had
been shot by another gun. But, not having made certain
who the owner of the gun he examined was, he had
drawn a totally erroneous inference from it. For since
the gun examined happened to be Cresswell's he was
more free from legitimate suspicion than any of them.
Yet at the time he was the only one they suspected! This
ought to stand as a classic example of the over-astute
policeman. A simple, direct question as to ownership
would have avoided this blunder, and might have put
the officer on the right track from the start. But would
that track have led to Joliffe?
Mrs. Brent's patience gave out.
"And what may that smile mean?" she inquired.
MacNab came back from his thoughts.
"Did I smile?" he asked.
"I'm not objecting; it's the first sign of life you've
shown for the last ten minutes," she explained dryly.
"I was thinking of a policeman who was too clever
by half," he said.
"As a warning to yourself, maybe," she suggested.
"Oh, I don't think I need that yet," MacNab pro-
tested.
"Well," she agreed, "you've shown no signs of being
over-clever so far. I hope you'll not be so slow that I'll
have to pretend indisposition, and take to my bed to
give you more time here. I do not like lying in bed—
nor waiting for things to happen," she added.
That afternoon MacNab did his best not to keep her
waiting. While she was lying down he strolled along the
pathway till he reached the seat opposite the tennis
courts. The Joliffe possibility was still not cleared away
from his mind. Almost certain that Toplis was shelter-


202
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
"Pondering some knotty problem in law, I bet," Toplis
nodded.
MacNab jumped to his feet.
"We came to ask you to have tea with us," the girl
said with a bright smile.
MacNab expressed his pleasure. Toplis had his arm
linked in Miss Cresswell's; they seemed on excellent
terms with each other.
"What were you thinking about, really?" the young
man asked, laughing.
MacNab smiled, too.
"Oh, I was only playing an imaginary game of tennis,"
he replied.
"But you looked so dashed serious."
"Well," MacNab rejoined, "and what is taken more
seriously nowadays?"
"Oh, I don't know," Toplis said. "We don't, anyway."
They began to move back towards the house.
"Only when we lose the balls," Miss Cresswell
amended.
"Lose the balls!" MacNab exclaimed. "Where?
How?"
As he paused and turned to regard the wide expanse
of turf the others stopped, too.
"Oh, well, you've got to lose your temper, perhaps,
and get as hot about it as Ronnie Joliffe before that
happens. Mr. Toplis can tell you about that," she added
with a smile.
"Can I?" Toplis inquired. "I've forgotten that I
could, then."
"Oh, come!" said the girl. "Don't you remember that
afternoon—" She stopped abruptly, and the smile
went from her lips as she herself remembered that after-
noon.


AN IMAGINARY GAME OF TENNIS 203
"Let's get on, I'm thirsty," Toplis cut in.
MacNab had to let the moment pass. Keenly aware
though he was that something which might be highly
significant lay behind Ronnie Joliffe's exhibition of bad
temper on that afternoon, he dared not risk probing
into it. He dared not seem too inquisitive about a man
he had never met, especially when Toplis gave such evi-
dent signs that he wished to drop the subject. MacNab
resolved to return to it when Mr. Toplis was not there,
for he found himself deeply interested. He meant to
find out what connection there was between Joliffe's loss
of temper and the lost tennis balls.


CHAPTER XX
MISS CRESSWELL EXPLAINS
It was while they were at tea that MacNab for the first
time saw Mary Willoughby. All the others, except Mr.
Willoughby and Dick, who had gone off somewhere in the
car, and of course Mrs. Brent, were there. Miss Cress-
well was acting as hotesss at the tea table when the door
opened and Miss Willoughby came in. It was Miss
Cresswell's exclamation that drew MacNab's attention
to her appearance.
"Mary! How—how sweet of you!"
Evidently her reappearance among them had not been
expected. When Mr. Toplis, to whom he had been talk-
ing, went to join the others who had crowded round the
girl, MacNab was able to examine her at his leisure.
"Please don't fuss over me," she pleaded. "I just
want . . . some tea." The pause and the break in her
voice showed that the want she had first thought of was
something else. Her voice, unlike the clear round voice
of her friend Miss Cresswell, was soft and low in pitch.
While Toplis placed a chair for her by the window, Mr.
Bray almost rushed to the table to procure the tea.
Before she moved her chair back out of the sunlight
MacNab saw enough to comprehend how this girl might
easily turn much stronger heads than Mr. Bray's. He
had caught the questioning look she cast on him as soon
as she perceived his presence. Her eyes were fine, though
of a colour he could not see at that distance, but probably
seemed larger than they were because of the small, deli-
cately pale face. She looked infinitely pathetic and ap-
pealing. There was a suggestion of—glamour was the
204


MISS CRESSWELL EXPLAINS
205
only word he could think of—about her. All her move-
ments had some sort of grace about them—natural, not
studied, MacNab decided, since at such a time she would
not be thinking of making any such effect.
Toplis pushed Miss Cresswell away in a fashion which
revealed the good terms in which they stood to each
other.
"No, no, Brenda," he said. "You've had chances Bray
and I hadn't. You go away; it's our turn now, eh,
Bray?"
Mr. Bray, who stood by with plates in each hand, and
looking as if he would like to carry her another in his
mouth, nodded a weak assent. Brenda Cresswell pro-
tested, but Toplis, who seemed to overlook nothing, drew
her attention to MacNab, and she yielded instantly.
The Arrochmore drawing-room was large and lofty, a
room which had in the old days—long before even the
days of Hanging George—been the banqueting hall. In-
deed, it was sufficiently spacious to have served as the
gathering place for half the clan. At this moment, how-
ever, its great size served not only to dispense with the
need for immediate introductions between Miss Wil-
loughby and MacNab—it offered MacNab an excellent
chance of talking to Miss Cresswell with no risk of being
overheard. And she, with a little smile of apology for
leaving him alone, led the way to a window seat still
more remote, as if she intended to atone by keeping him
to herself.
"Mary's hardly fit to meet—new people yet," she ex-
plained. MacNab liked the way she avoided calling him
a stranger.
"Of course not," he agreed; "especially a stranger like
myself, who is only here on account of what happened."
"Yes," she said, "there's that, of course. But what I


206 THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
feel is that the best thing now would be for her to see
more people—of her own age, of course—and to give her
something to do. I mean, take her out of herself."
"Seems a pity the others went," he said. "Mrs. Brent
told me about them."
"Yes," the girl sighed. "We were so happy. Of course
it seemed the right thing for them to go at the time. But
now they could do so much good if they were here! We
were all so happy," she repeated.
The moment did not seem suitable for a mention of
Joliffe's ill temper. He switched over to the second
matter he had on his mind.
"Happy till that fateful day on the moor, of course,"
he said, picking up his cup.
"Yes, that was the beginning of it. Do you know, I
always say the wretch who fired at him there was the
person really responsible for his death. Don't you agree
with me—as a lawyer, I mean?"
"As a man I do most certainly. I only hope the scoun-
drel will be caught."
"Well, it's about that Mr. Willoughby is away seeing
the police now. It appears they know the man—a road
navvy—and they want Mr. Willoughby to have a look at
him." She glanced round to make sure she was not
overheard. "You know, of course, Mr. Brent was mis-
taken for Mr. Willoughby?"
MacNab nodded.
"Because of the white coat—yes, I've heard that.
Tragic indeed to borrow a coat and get shot for it."
"Oh, it wasn't like that," Miss Cresswell corrected.
"Mr. Willoughby wasn't there. That's the irony of it.
He was in Inverness at the trial of a poacher he'd caught.
He never expected them to go out, you know—not a
good day for the moor. It was only later when it cleared


MISS CRESSWELL EXPLAINS
207
up that Mr. Joliffe suggested the shoot, and Mr. Toplis in
the end gave way. That's why he blamed himself after-
wards for what happened."
Unaware of how much more time he would have with
her, and fortified by the fact that he had been presented
with an answer to one important question, MacNab
thought he could safely risk just one direct attack. He
did so, however, not without feeling half ashamed of him-
self. It was a feeling he had almost forgotten. But now
this girl, apparently anxious merely to unburden her
mind in a very human way, revived the old qualms he
had once experienced when the interests of justice forced
him to pump information from the unsuspecting.
"Ah," he said, "if only Mr. Joliffe had been content
with tennis when it cleared up!" Then before any com-
ment could come he added, "But no doubt he was better
with a gun than a racquet."
Brenda Cresswell stared at him blankly, almost
stupidly, for what seemed a full minute.
"You did not know him," she said. "How can you
know that?"
MacNab smiled.
"Oh, no, I don't know him. But I think I heard you
say something about his losing his temper at tennis."
Her responsive smile came quickly.
"Oh, yes, I see; but that only happened that after-
noon."
"Something annoyed him?"
"Yes. I think it was because—well—because Mary
went away after my brother had gone to get the new
balls. He began to knock the few we had left out of the
court." She smiled reminiscently. "Soon there weren't
enough balls left for more than two of us to play with."
"How extraordinary. Couldn't you get them back?"


MISS CRESSWELL EXPLAINS
209
the pathway. Having reached a position at which Ar-
rochmore was out of sight, he crossed the tennis courts,
and, coming out on the Duchray section of the drive,
stood there awhile in some thought. It was certainly
very easy to knock a ball from the tennis court on to
the road. A ball hitting the hard road surface would
certainly bound over it and conceivably roll down the
slope quite a long way. Among those trees and bushes
it was easy to understand that a man might search for a
long time without much success—even long enough, once
he was out of sight, to get round to Duchray and shoot a
man dead before he reappeared.
MacNab went back to resume his legal deliberations
with Mrs. Brent, well satisfied with the way things were
going.


CHAPTER XXI
THE SCINTILLA ASPERA
He found, however, when he reached Mrs. Brent's room,
that she had much more important news for him than he
had for her. At least, so the thing seemed to Mrs. Brent,
and MacNab, having listened to her, was not disposed
to disagree.
"Are you quite sure?" he asked, after hearing her tale.
She was in a highly excited state.
"I have no proof, if that is what you mean," she said,
"but I'm morally certain it is as I say. Some one has
been in this room while I was taking my usual siesta
this afternoon, and whoever it was went through all
these papers."
She pointed to the pile of letters and documents lying
on her small table by the window. He sat down, wonder-
ing if some suspicion of his real profession had been
aroused. Was this an attempt to find out whether any
work connected with Mrs. Brent's legal interests was
actually being done by him? He had had the foresight
to have a nice black japanned deed-box sent on from
London with his clothes; but he had not thought it
necessary to provide himself with legal documents to fill
it. So far from that, he had divested himself of all
papers or letters which could give a hint of his identity;
and all those papers he left behind with his other bag-
gage at the Loch Laggan Hotel.
Still, he had with him the various precognitions taken
by Murray and the plan of the section of Keppoch Moor
removed from the sergeant's note-book. All these papers
were in the locked deed-box which he had left with Mrs.
Brent to supply a silent witness, if such were necessary,
210


THE SCINTILLA ASPERA
211
to his supposed business with her. MacNab unlocked the
box and had a look at its contents. He did not think it
had been opened. It was highly unlikely, too, that any
one could have come into that room and, seeing the box
for the first time, find himself by chance the happy
possessor of a key that fitted the lock. And it was a
certainty that if the papers had been read it was by some
one much more methodical than the person who had
rummaged through Mrs. Brent's letters. No, he was
nearly certain no one had handled the papers in his deed-
box. But that did not save him from further anxiety.
He looked down at her pile of letters.
"It was some servant," he said, "some curious prying
maid. They are often like that."
She nodded assent after a moment.
"That's quite true, as I know from experience," she
said with a breath of obvious relief. "I've caught them
before now with their noses in my letters, so taken up
with what they read that they never heard my wheels."
But he wished he could be more certain.
"I suppose," he said, "there wasn't much in any of
these letters that would be—well—compromising. You
hadn't, I mean, made any references to me in any letter
to a friend?"
"Certainly not," she retorted almost acidly; "and
even if I'd been such a fool, there's been no time for
any one to refer to it in her reply. These letters on my
table, as you might know without being told, are letters
of sympathy to which I was trying to reply."
So far, so good, MacNab thought to himself. But if no
hint as to the suspicions they held had been gleaned from
her correspondence, the fact still remained that the room
contained no papers bearing on the complicated legal
business for which he was supposed to be there. He


214 THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
but it's quite a simple matter to get hold of all the letters
which leave this house. I have merely to convince the
Procurator-Fiscal that information vital to the case is
likely to be found in a certain letter which will leave this
house to-morrow morning, and he will see the postmaster
and arrange that before dispatch that letter will first be
read by Superintendent Rintoul. Then the man is as
good as lost."
Watching her, he saw the wicked gleam return to her
eyes.
"You are right," she cried, smiting the arm of her
chair. "We've as good as won already."
That wasn't how he had put it; but he understood
her point of view well enough. Her extreme bitterness
could only be judged by one in her own condition who
had suffered the same loss. The next breath her wits,
sharpened by hate, pounced on what appeared to be a
flaw in his strategy.
"The letter may have already gone by this evening's
mail."
But he was able to reassure her. Nothing decisive,
either way, could have been gathered from the search
among her letters. And though the person in the house
might have dispatched a letter that evening, he could do
no more than communicate his suspicions. That he was
unlikely to do until he had verified them—if he had a
cool head, that was. In any event there would be further
letters. More than that, the Police Superintendent would
stop not only the outgoing but also the incoming mail
as well.
"What do you think of that?" he demanded as he
finished.
She yielded her objection, her tense face muscles re-
laxing.


THE SCINTILLA ASPERA
"I see that after all you know your business," she
said, sitting back contentedly. And then her gaze went
away through the open window, over the tops of the
tree-clad slopes, over the loch and up to the high hills
beyond. MacNab divined she considered the case to be
practically over, and her immediate thirst for revenge
being satisfied, she was now contemplating through the
open window not the glories of the sunset, whose scarlet
streaks had paled down to amethyst, nor the purple of
the Ardgour Mountains, nor the darkening waters of
Loch Linnhe, but life, her own life in the future, fixed in
that wheel chair, without her son, and robbed of the
glories which his fame would have reflected on herself.
He broke into her thoughts with a question.
"Mrs. Brent, you can tell me where the telephone is
placed at Duchray?"
"Yes," she said, "it's not easy to find unless you know.
There's a small cloak-room behind the stairs; it's there,
against the wall at the right of the door."
She appeared to know why he wanted this information,
and her eyes went back towards the hills. He stood be-
hind watching her for a minute or two. It was yet
too early to think of entering Duchray without risk of
being seen. And as he watched something came flutter-
ing and dancing in at the open window. He put out his
hand.
"Hullo!" he said, "a scintilla aspera!"
"A what?" she said, turning her head.
"A scintilla aspera! Look," he whispered, pointing.
"One of the rarest of British moths. I really must get
him. Do you mind if I shut the window?"
Before she could reply he had the window down and
went after the moth. He knew she thought him childish.
But she wheeled round her chair to watch the hunt. He


2l6
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
caught it at last as it nosed its way up the wall, and
brought it to her imprisoned in both hands. In between
his fingers she caught a glimpse of the light-grey wings,
tipped with red.
"It's a sort of counterpart to the Red Admiral butter-
fly," he explained; "just as he flies quite a bit at night,
so this little fellow's got the habit of roistering about in
daylight before his enemies have gone to bed. That's
why he's so rare." He looked round for something in
which to put him. "Open the deed-box," he said, "he'll
do very well there."
She wheeled her chair up to the table and at his re-
quest took out all the papers. Deftly, while she watched,
half contemptuously, he got his hands inside the box,
turned them down, and while holding the insect with one
hand, whisked the other away and had the lid down
before the scintilla aspera knew what had happened.
That done, he locked the box and pocketed the key and
the papers it had contained.
"Well, that's that," he said with an air of great con-
tentment.
Suddenly she threw a swift glance at his satisfied
countenance and then burst into a queer grating laugh.
"I see the idea," she said. "Yes, I believe I do."
"You do?" He was very pleased with himself.
She nodded, more pleased with him than even he was
with himself.
"But there's one thing I don't believe."
"What?"
"I don't believe that moth is so rare as you said."
He smiled.
"Well, anyhow, Mrs. Brent, you must admit it came
in here at the right moment."
A little later, when darkness had fallen, he got away


2l8
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
call suggested he had been interrupted at some interest-
ing moment in his domestic life.
"Yes, Superintendent Rintoul," he gruffly agreed.
"MacNab speaking. I want your help."
"Yes, what is it?" The question came sharply,
charged not with impatience, but anticipation. "Where
are you speaking from?"
"The cloak-room of an empty house. I've lost some-
thing you alone can recover for me. Can you see me
about it?"
"Important?"
"And urgent. Matter of life and death."
A few minutes later MacNab was threading his way
down the slope towards the arranged meeting with Rin-
toul. A meeting between them could not be avoided,
since it might have been unsafe to have spoken with the
police over the telephone about the interception of letters
from a house like Arrochmore. MacNab did not know
what the opportunities for telephonic interception were;
but he was well enough aware how rapidly gossip spreads
in country districts, and therefore took no risks. He had
not even named the house from which he spoke, and of
course Rintoul did not need to be told. When MacNab
said he would meet him at the point where the boundary
wall touched the road, Rintoul knew what grounds the
wall bounded.
He found the descent easier than he had anticipated.
The slope of the ground from Duchray down to the high
road was thick set with trees and laurel shrubs, and in
the dark he had expected to find the going difficult. But
he discovered there was a rough foot track which ran
down parallel to the wall, obviously formed by estate
workers and the Duchray staff as a shorter cut than the
winding drive farther to the west.


THE SCINTILLA ASPERA 2IQ
f
In ten minutes he was leaning over the low wall front-
ing the main road, waiting for Rintoul. He knew he
would have to wait some time. From across the broad
road, faintly white for a long distance on either side with
its new surface, came the ripple and sigh of the tide
flowing up Loch Linnhe. Overhead a half-hearted wind,
which was uncertainly trying itself out now and then,
fluttered the leaves off the trees. Across the velvet black-
ness of the loch a single pin-head of golden light from a
cottage window alone marked the position of the farther
shore. Occasionally a car swept past, its headlights lay-
ing two snowy pyramids on the road, and then going on
to rake the trees as it swept round the curve on his left.
Rintoul might have arrived sooner had he not parked
his car half a mile down the road. MacNab had drawn
back when the footsteps came close, as he had done once
or twice already. But when the steps ceased and he took
a peep over the wall, he recognized Rintoul in the dim
figure looking up from the roadway. Rintoul, as soon as
he saw MacNab, slipped up the bank and over the wall
like a shadow.
"Got hold of something?" he suggested.
"We think so," MacNab replied.
"We?" the superintendent repeated.
"Mrs. Brent is the other. In fact, if there's any credit
going, it should be to her."
"Tell me what it is and I'll judge," Rintoul retorted.
MacNab did not make a long story of it, and Rintoul
soon had a complete understanding of the position to
which the case had been advanced. At the end he
seemed a little disappointed.
"It boils down to this," he said: "if the person who
interfered with Mrs. Brent's papers was not an in-
quisitive domestic, you think it must have been some


220
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
person who suspects you to be interested in, let us say,
what happened to Brent."
"And to-morrow we may know on whose behalf he
became interested in her papers," MacNab said.
Rintoul shook his head doubtfully.
"It's such a slender possibility, I'd hardly be justified
in arranging to have the letters stopped," he said. "The
plain fact is, we have still nothing tangible to suggest
murder, except that revolver, and even it might have a
perfectly natural explanation, if we only knew it, like
Mr. Cresswell's gun," he added.
MacNab himself was only too conscious of the truth of
what Rintoul said. They knew nothing against any one
as established fact; however strong suspicion might be,
it is one thing to suspect and another to know, and even
to know may be a long remove from being able to prove.
Rintoul, MacNab admitted, was quite right about that.
He was aware that the number of what are called the
unsolved mysteries of crime is far less than the public
suppose. In most cases of murder at least the police
usually know who the man is, but cannot prosecute be-
cause they have not sufficient evidence to secure a con-
viction.
"You see," Rintoul broke in, "we're already in Wil-
loughby's bad books. He came to see me this afternoon.
Cannot comprehend, he says, why we have failed to
connect up some one with the affair on the moor." Rin-
toul sighed gently. "I don't know whether he's nervous
that a man who is supposed to have shot at himself is
still at large, but he was very unpleasant about it all.
What he'd say if we stopped his letters to no purpose,
and he got word of it—"
Though MacNab appreciated Rintoul's difficulty, it was
of tremendous importance to him that next morning's


THE SCINTILLA ASPERA
221
letters from Arrochmore should be examined. To miss
next morning's mail might be to miss getting the all-
essential proof.
"Oh, well," he said wearily after they had debated to
little effect for some time, "by to-morrow morning I'll
know who the man in the house is. Unfortunately for me
you won't act till you know yourself, and by that time
the letter which might easily bring you a conviction will
have passed beyond your reach."
That touched Rintoul up. As if to get away from
MacNab's influence on him, he took a few steps along the
side of the wall. MacNab watched him, a dim shadowy
figure leaning with his arms folded on the top of the low
wall. He watched in doubt as to the result. Had he
known that already in this case the superintendent, after
playing the part of counsel for the defence, had yielded
to his sergeant's arguments, only to discover later that
those arguments had no foundation in fact, he would
have understood Rintoul's reluctance now. The super-
intendent, as he leaned on the wall, saw not the loch
before him, but that interview with Sergeant Cameron
in his office. Cameron had been so sure, not only that
the affair on Keppoch Moor constituted a case of at-
tempted murder, but that the man was Cresswell. And
the sergeant's case against Cresswell was far stronger
than MacNab's against Joliffe.
Rintoul paused in his thought for a moment to note
how Toplis cropped up in connection with each of the
two suspects. Cameron had caught him out in an at-
tempt at lying, and MacNab believed him to be spying on
himself in the interests of Joliffe. Rintoul's mind
fastened on that coincidence. Of the two, Joliffe seemed
the more likely, since he and Toplis were old friends, and,
so far as was known, Toplis had no particular interest in


CHAPTER XXII
TROUBLE WITH THE SUPERINTENDENT
MacNab slept very badly that night. Once he allowed
himself to turn over in his mind the various possibilities
and chances, it was not long before he began to toss and
turn over in body as well as mind. But when sunrise
came he was fast enough asleep.
It was a curious intermittent knocking at his door that
ultimately made him sit up and rub his eyes. He did
not take morning tea, and could not imagine what the
knocking portended. Slipping from his bed, he peeped
out to discover Mrs. Brent bumping her wheel chair
against the door. He was amazed to find her there.
"You needn't gape at me like that," she said. "I ex-
pected you to be up long ago."
He glanced at his wrist watch and discovered it was
nearly eight o'clock.
Late as it was for him, it was early for Mrs. Brent. It
flashed through his mind that if she was seen it would
certainly surprise any one to find a client consulting her
solicitor at such a time and place. The same thought
seemed to occur to her. She waved him back.
"Put on the essentials and I'll come in," she com-
manded. And then, slewing her chair round, passed
along the corridor.
He dressed as quickly as possible, but she was back
before he had finished shaving. Razor in hand, he shut
the door behind her.
"I awoke so early. When my tea came I got the maid
to help me dress. I wanted so much to know about that
box."
"The deed-box, you mean?"
233


224
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
"Yes. I had a nightmare dream about it. I dreamt
about that scintilla— What do you call it?"
"Aspera?" he suggested. "What about it?"
"Well, I had a horrid dream about it. I dreamt that
I saw all the red spots on its wings move one by one to
its head, then it made itself quite small, and after running
round inside the box very fast, it crawled up to the lock
and poked its head out of the keyhole."
MacNab, turning to stare at her, almost cut himself.
"Yes, it was horrid. I knew it hated me. I saw it
looking at me, and except for the red hair on its head the
face might have been the face of that man Joliffe."
MacNab recovered himself.
"You were thinking too much about it before you went
to sleep," he said.
"Yes, I know. But I wouldn't go into the sitting-room
this morning without you for a lot, curious as I am to
know what's happened there."
The speed with which he completed his toilet was not
due mainly to his own curiosity about what had hap-
pened in her sitting-room; he felt fairly certain about
that; but Rintoul's messenger was due in fifteen minutes,
and that left him a bare ten minutes in which to ascer-
tain what had happened in the room before showing him-
self to the police officer on the terrace.
Fortunately Mrs. Brent's bedroom door almost faced
his own, otherwise Mr. Toplis, swinging past the end of
the corridor as he came downstairs, might have seen the
chair emerge from MacNab's room. As it was, from the
hasty glance he threw along the corridor in passing, he
would only suppose she had just left her own room. Mac-
Nab joined her a moment later.
"Got the key?" she whispered.
He now believed her to have invented that nightmare.


TROUBLE WITH THE SUPERINTENDENT 22 5
Not much good her going to the room, since she could
not open the box. He already had the key in his hand.
"Quite a common ordinary key," he said, showing it.
"I dare say there are dozens like it in dressing-tables
and suit-cases."
The deed-box was on the table by the window, as Mrs.
Brent noted, in exactly the same position. He inserted
the key in the lock.
"Now," he said, "we'll see whether my moth has de-
veloped a face and red hair in the night." He fumbled a
bit in getting the box open; so much hung on what he
found inside. Mrs. Brent had plenty of time to get her
chair close to the table. Her lean neck seemed tense
with expectation as she craned over.
The box was empty.
He showed her the inside. He showed her the lock;
there was no hole inside through which the scintilla
aspera could have crawled, even given the nightmare
capacity of reducing its size to the dimensions of a flea.
MacNab, leaving the box in her hands, hurried off,
afraid of missing Rintoul's officer. As he crossed the
hall he saw Toplis standing by the table on which letters
were left for the postman's call at eight-thirty. In his
hasty passing glance he perceived that the morning's out-
going mail looked considerable. Rintoul would have to
be speedy in his examination if they were not to miss a
post.
He had only taken a couple of turns on the terrace
before he heard the soft whirr of bicycle wheels, and then
the sliding of a foot on the gravel. Turning round, he
saw a police sergeant in the act of dismounting. The
man looked at him curiously. With the faintest inclina-
tion of the head MacNab wheeled round and resumed
his promenade. But he did not go in to breakfast until


TROUBLE WITH THE SUPERINTENDENT 22 7
More than that: he had been too late even to intercept
the reply to it.
Mr. Willoughby and his son came in together. Their
host seemed unusually affable.
"Dick and I are going fishing to-day," he remarked.
"Not burn fishing, you know," Dick explained from
the sideboard, "but big fishing in the boat on Loch
Linnhe." Getting back with his full plate of kedgeree,
he spared time for a glance across the table at MacNab.
"Like sea trout?" he inquired.
"Better than salmon," MacNab asserted stoutly.
Mr. Willoughby laughed.
"Dick," he admonished, "don't offer what you haven't
got yet. How about coming with us yourself, Mr.
Francis?" he suggested.
As Dick looked at his father in round-eyed amazement,
Mr. Willoughby continued, "We shall be quite alone, you
know."
"Oh, father, he wouldn't like that at all," Dick put in.
They all laughed.
"Come, come, Dick, we're not as bad as all that," Mr.
Willoughby said.
Dick flushed up.
"I didn't mean that," he said. "I meant he wouldnH
like fishing."
"Why not?" Toplis asked. They were all looking at
Dick.
"Well, hg's a lawyer, isn't he?"
"And A-hat has that to do with it?" Mr. Willoughby
persisted.
"Well, hang it all, fishing's sport," Dick replied.
They laughed again, Mr. Willoughby loudest of all.
"Dick," he explained, "can't see the two in combina-
tion."
I


230
THE GROUSE MOOS MURDER
you know, pay so well. He's a strange chap, though,
with a face as long as a fiddle, and sleepwalker's eyes.
Yet he is most curiously inquisitive, for all that;
mightily interested, you know, for all his abstracted
eyes and furrowed brow."
At sight of MacNab's face Rintoul burst into sudden
laughter, his ill-humour gone.
"Ourselves as ithers see us," he remarked.
"Ay," MacNab admitted, taking the allusion, "but
I don't see from what blunder it will free us."
"No?" Rintoul was serious again. "Well, speaking
for myself, this will save me from repeating one bad
blunder, anyway."
"You mean you will not again invoke the power of
the post office, I suppose?"
"You may put it like that," Rintoul agreed. "To be
candid, I don't like playing Peeping Tom in this way.
It would be different if we got anything, but we have not.
There's nothing in the letters I have the least right to
know, and a good deal I don't want to know about their
private affairs. I don't want to know what Mrs. Brent
considers the best cure for varicose veins, nor what Mr.
Toplis thinks of Mr. Bray, nor of Miss Cresswell's ex-
periences with Vortex Underwear. Neither do I like
reading her brother's appeals to her for money, nor do I
like hearing Mr. Willoughby's opinions about myself.
Have a cigarette." Rintoul pushed the box across the
table. MacNab sat down, ignoring the offer.
The debate that followed between the two lasted long.
At times it even threatened to degenerate into a wrangle;
but Rintoul remained firm. He would not again risk
being made to look foolish in his own eyes, as he now
seemed to himself, when he yielded to the specious argu-


TROUBLE WITH THE SUPERINTENDENT 231
ments set forth in that same room by his own sergeant.
By the greatest good luck no actual harm had come of
his weakness then; but Rintoul did not like being made
to look foolish to himself, and he held out against Mac-
Nab's arguments and pleadings like a rock. The other
man almost despaired. There was a point, in fact, when
he stretched out a hand to lift his hat from the table;
but when Rintoul said nothing he changed his mind, and
instead picked a cigarette from the box. Rintoul, who
had long ago risen as if to terminate the discussion, now
stood on the hearthrug, hands behind back, looking every
inch the Superintendent of Police.
"You know," MacNab said after a puff or two, "even
this extract from the letter is not without significance,
when associated with the search into the deed-box." He
pushed the paper across the table. Rintoul remained
where he was. "For one thing, why should this man
Joliffe ask Toplis about any new people at all? Surely
after what had happened it was only exceptional circum-
stances which could bring new visitors there so soon. He
could hardly have had a new house party in his mind
when he put that question, since he and the others had
left because of the tragedy."
"Ye-s," Rintoul nodded. "I take your point. He had
knowledge of some exceptional circumstance which
might bring new people to the house. But the excep-
tional circumstance may be something perfectly inno-
cent about which we know nothing."
"Oh, well," MacNab conceded, "I know I've got hold
of nothing big and conclusive. They are all small points
—straws, if you like. But how many straws does it take,
all pointing in the same direction, too, to make a police
superintendent see where the wind blows?"
Rintoul picked the paper from the table. He neither


CHAPTER XXIII
THE BEDROOM DOOR
MacNab had assured Rintoul he would establish that
evening the identity of the person who had twice searched
the sitting-room. He did not doubt in his own mind that
the man was Toplis, neither did he doubt that Toplis,
having become suspicious but not certain, was acting in
his friend's interests. But if he could prove that the
secretary had been ransacking the room, it would not
only fortify Rintoul, but also be evidence supporting
whatever the intercepted letters might contain.
He had evolved a method by which he thought Toplis
might be trapped. It was a trick he had used before
with success, and as soon as he entered the house he
began preparing it. At breakfast Mr. Willoughby had
suggested they would like to see him at dinner that night
if Mrs. Brent would spare him.
MacNab was already familiar with the habits of the
house. He knew that it was the custom for the men,
after having dressed, to take their cocktails in the bil-
liard-room and, if sufficient time remained, they might
play a hundred up. Seeing no one about, he entered the
billiard-room now, and, finding it empty, went in to
remove a cube of chalk from one of the table pockets.
He then went to the sitting-room. Mrs. Brent seemed to
have retired earlier that day. Anyway, she was not
there, though a glance around revealed the work-basket
which contained her various sewing materials. From the
basket he pocketed a reel of white cotton. He then went
to his own room and put in half an hour with a book
before changing. Then he set his trap.
MacNab's argument with himself led him to the con-
«34


THE BEDROOM DOOR 239
i
the mountain mists came down on the evening he got
back from Inverness, afterwards throwing it into the
water. How easy! He need only have had the weapon
in his hands for a few moments. Had any one seen him
before or after those few minutes, he was the one man
of them all who stood beyond the possibility of sus-
picion. He had shot Brent in the library while Dr.
Frossard was upstairs and before Mrs. Brent had been
carried down. The door was shut and locked when she
came down, and the wheel chair removed, making her
suppose her son had been already wheeled away by Mary.
He had used a silencer on the revolver, afterwards taking
that away, but leaving the weapon to suggest suicide.
The shot the housekeeper heard was the shot the boy
Dick had fired from the lawn to frighten his tutor. The
daughter alone appeared to suspect her father, if her
refusal to see him meant anything. She alone would
know the strength of his hatred for Brent, since she must
have heard many times over all his arguments against
the match.
While this was flashing through his mind MacNab
maintained a strict watch on the two men at the far
corner of the table. At any moment a hand might go up
to brush away the chalk mark on Willoughby's coat. He
might even inadvertently touch his coat with the tip of
the cue he had picked up and was now himself chalking
as he talked with Toplis. MacNab had to make sure that
neither of these things happened unobserved by himself.
Suddenly Willoughby stepped away from Toplis and
came round to the side table on which the tray of cock-
tail glasses stood at MacNab's elbow. He nodded
pleasantly to the watcher.
"Pity you didn't come with us to-day; we had a good
catch," he said. Then, before any reply could come, he


THE BEDROOM DOOR
241
"Me?" Mr. Bray cried.
"Why, yes," the other responded, "for the same reason
that you took up smoking."
"I don't quite see that," Mr. Willoughby put in.
Toplis made no reply till he had finished his shot.
"Well," he said, "he started smoking to get on friendly
terms with the men of his future parish. Billiards would
be a second string to his bow in that respect."
"Oh, but," Mr. Bray cried, "any skill I might acquire
in this game might be taken as evidence of an ill-spent
youth, if you know what I mean."
Mr. Willoughby laughed.
"That's one for you, Toplis."
Toplis ignored the good-humoured gibe and nodded
to Bray.
"You're not likely to become as good as all that at
the game," he said.
"You're judging him from the smoking," Mr. Wil-
loughby said.
"Well, let him try billiards; at least it wouldn't hurt
him like the pipe."
While they were discussing the relative merits of
smoking and billiards as aids in parish work, MacNab
rose and unobtrusively left the room. He felt all at sea.
There was just the one thing he could do. If no one had
yet entered his room the unbroken thread would still be
stretched across the door. Although he himself had left
the coast clear for that entrance, something unforeseen
might very well have prevented Toplis—or, yes, he must
include Willoughby now—from taking the chance he had
offered.
He mounted the stairs rapidly. At the far end of the
corridor he saw a couple of maids idly gossiping together
while they waited for the dinner gong which would set


CHAPTER XXIV
THE THREE POSTAGE STAMPS
On the afternoon of the following day MacNab took an-
other risk and went to see Superintendent Rintoul.
Rintoul betrayed no surprise on hearing of his failure
to establish the identity of the person nosing about the
detective's room. He had, it seemed, expected this from
his own failure that morning with the letters. There
had been letters from Mr. Willoughby, Miss Willoughby,
Miss Cresswell, Mr. Bray and from Toplis, though none
from the last named to Mr. Joliffe. In none of them was
there a word that could be remotely connected with the
supposed crime.
"Not even a small pen portrait of yourself," Rintoul
said.
"Well," MacNab remarked, "the thread was broken,
you know. Some one did enter my room and go through
my things."
"Yes, there's that in it," Rintoul admitted. "It does
look as if somebody in the house is mighty keen to find
out something about you."
"Not for nothing," MacNab said.
"No, but not necessarily for what you think," he re-
plied. Rintoul toyed with his pen. "You assume it's
somebody who wants to find out whether you're a detec-
tive or a lawyer. But, allowing you're suspected of
playing a part, what is there to show they don't suspect
you of being—let's say—a burglar?"
And although MacNab felt the suggestion to be absurd,
he was without any concrete data to advance against it.
"That's just nonsense," he said curtly.
Rintoul, however, reading his depression and perhaps
243


THE THREE POSTAGE STAMPS
245
spirit, and Rintoul gripped it like one who has sealed a
contract.
That evening MacNab had a long consultation with
Mrs. Brent over the position. As he had told Rintoul,
the three days for which he had come would expire to-
morrow, and it was Mrs. Brent who had informed Wil-
loughby that her business affairs could all be settled in-
side that time. Somehow an extension of the time had
to be contrived. At the outset it had been arranged that
if necessary Mrs. Brent should have a collapse and be
unable to transact any business till she recovered. That
scheme had not only the disadvantage of tying her up
in her room, to which she was most averse, but also
would prevent MacNab from seeing her in the interval.
It was Mrs. Brent herself who finally hit on the most
promising pretext.
"I know," she said, sitting up in sudden triumph. "All
that's necessary is for me to send to Somerset House for
my Uncle Robert's will."
"Somerset House?" he echoed.
"Yes. That's where wills are kept. You can get a
copy of anybody's last will and testament from them for
eighteen pence."
"Quite," he agreed, "but—"
"See," she interrupted, "I'm going to say that I can't
settle my own will until I refresh my memory about how
he disposed of his effects among his other nephews and
nieces."
He could discern no flaw in this proposal.
"That will at least give me three extra days," he said.
"Very well, then," she said. "Let's hope you'll make
more use of the last three than you've done with the
first."
His own hopes were chiefly centred on what Rintoul


246
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
might discover in the letters. But this time he quite
appreciated the trick that.had been played with his
chalked thread. Somehow the thread had been seen. He
could not imagine how it could have "been seen against
the white enamelled door. But later that evening he
made an experiment which revealed what could have
rendered the thread not merely visible, but prominent.
Almost opposite, and next to Mrs. Brent's room, was
the bathroom, and he discovered that if its door were
left open the light within became deflected on a section
of the thread across his own door; not only that, but,
provided the bathroom dbor were left only ajar, the light
did not reach the surface of his own door, and so left
the white thread very noticeable against the shadowy
background. He was quite certain, therefore, that the
bathroom door had been shut when he attached his
thread on the previous evening. If it had not been shut
he would have seen how the thread stood out so visibly.
This led to another discovery. Having experimented
with the bathroom door and the resultant effect from the
light when the door was set at various' angles, he shut
the door and switched off the light. Then, taking the
chair, he stood up and looked through the fanlight above
the door, to discover that it was quite possible for any
one in that position to maintain a watch on his bedroom
door without being himself seen.
MacNab, stepping off the chair, did not doubt there
had been a watcher there the night before. Some one
standing on that chair had seen his operations on his
own door—some one who had been waiting for him to go
down to dinner, and who, although knowing he would
be unlikely to return till the end of dinner at earliest,
was yet anxious to lose not even one moment of the time
available. Yet dinner at Arrochmore usually lasted about


THE THREE POSTAGE STAMPS 249
could not believe that with such a story to tell any man
standing in the relation which he thought Toplis stood to
Joliffe could make no reference to it, especially in a letter
which he had himself taken care to hand over to the
postman direct.
MacNab left the office with shaken nerves. On his way
back he came on Mr. Bray seated by the loch's side close
to the road. The young man was deep in a book, his
whole attitude indicating intense absorption. MacNab,
feeling at a loose end if ever man did, sauntered up from
behind. His projected shadow caught the reader's eye
and he turned swiftly. Mr. Bray greeted him cheerfully.
MacNab, stooping, picked up the volume just put down.
"Hullo—Butler's Analogy, eh?" he said. "Pretty stiff
reading, I'm told."
"Well," Bray assented, 'the man who wrote it did
have to have some brains, if you know what I mean."
"And the man who reads it, too, no doubt."
Mr. Bray smiled deprecatingly.
"Parts of it are quite simple," he said; "what he says
about probability, for example."
MacNab knew Mr. Bray could not guess how apt his
chosen example was to his hearer.
"Probability," MacNab cried. "Does such a thing
exist?"
"Oh, dear me, yes," Mr. Bray assured him. "In fact,
if you study Butler you'll see it does much more than
exist. Probability, he says, is the guide to life, if you
know what he means."
MacNab threw the book on the grass again.
"I do," he said. "He means that as we live in a world
in which nobody can be certain of anything, we are
forced to act on what is probable."
Mr. Bray nodded, fishing out a note-book.


THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
"That's it, in modern speech, of course. I must make I
a note of it."
"But I don't agree with him."
"Oh, really, I say," Mr. Bray protested. "You forget
he was a bishop."
"The whole thing's a toss-up. You pay your money,
but you get no choice," MacNab persisted. "Probability
is as rare as certainty. Pick out any horse, the odds are
always against you."
Mr. Bray seemed rather shocked.
"Oh, but, you know, I don't think the bishop could
have had horses in his mind when he wrote about cer-
tainties, if you know what I mean," he said, as MacNab
began to walk away.
The next day was equally barren of results, so far as
Arrochmore was concerned. In the afternoon he went
down to the station once more, and the shake of the
superintendent's head was sufficient. That was on the
Thursday. On the Friday Rintoul did not receive him
with a shake of the head—he simply looked at him; and
that look was more than enough in its silent eloquence.
He did not go to see Rintoul at all on the Saturday.
Having touched the depths of despair in that connection,
he began to cast about for another angle of approach.
This took him once more to the scene of the shooting on
Keppoch Moor, and he spent about a couple of hours go-
ing over the ground and studying the possibilities. Ser-
geant Cameron's plan made it easy to identify the various
positions of the men, and he considered that, given the
misty afternoon, Joliffe could have little trouble in slip-
ping down the burn unseen to a point from which he
could shoot Brent as he passed. But he had to admit
that the attempt could as easily and more safely have
been made by one coming up the slope from the big burn


THE THREE POSTAGE STAMPS 251
at the bottom of the valley to which the other was
merely a tributary.
Then the clouds which had been rolling up for several
days finally made up their minds to break, and presently
the rain drove him to seek shelter. Taking what he
reckoned would be a short cut home along the hillside,
he thought it would be easy to recognize the pinewood
above Arrochmore when he reached it. The going, how-
ever, was very rough, and after a couple of miles, coming
on a cottage set amid a clump of trees, he went up to ask
for shelter. The man who opened the door, a sturdy
bearded fellow of fifty, had the gamekeeper written all
over him. He appeared to know who MacNab was, and
invited him to step inside in a hearty but not in the
least deferential tone.
"Losh, but you're wet, sir—just fair dreepin'," he ex-
claimed. "Come in bye to the kitchen, where there's a
fire."
Murdoch, as he slung the jacket and waistcoat over a
chair to dry in front of the fire, explained that his wife
was down in the town for her week-end shopping.
"You're the law gentleman from London, I'm think-
ing," he said. "Come to settle up after the young gentle-
man's death, they tell me."
This was near enough the truth for MacNab to let it
pass. As Murdoch himself was smoking, he fished out
his own pipe and filled it.
"Ay, a bad business, thon," Murdoch went on. "You'll
no' have heerd if they've got the man yet?"
"They're not yet sure who he is," MacNab said.
The gamekeeper, in the act of setting his guest's shoes
to dry on the fender, spat his contempt into the fire.
"Everybody hereabouts knows fine who did it," he de-
clared. "One 0' those daum poaching road navvies."


2 52 THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
Murdoch's venom against his natural enemies was very-
manifest.
"Pity you weren't there yourself," MacNab said.
Murdoch's teeth gleamed.
"Ay, I'd soon have seen the skulking scoundrel; but
they did na' let me know they were going out. If they
had I'd have stoppit them. No' a day for the moor, yon.
Ay, but young gentlemen are a' the same. They must
have what they fancy at the moment the fancy comes.
So what do they do but raid the gun room, and off they
go wi' the first gun they can lay their hands on and any
kind of ammunition forbye."
There was one question that had occupied MacNab's
mind ever since he became aware that he had entered
the gamekeeper's cottage. He put it now.
"I suppose," he said, "there's no doubt it was one of
those poaching navvies who fired at Mr. Brent. The size
of the shot taken from his shoulder corresponded, I'm
told, with the size of the shot in two cartridges found
later on one of them."
Afterwards he remembered the pause that followed.
He had been holding out one of his feet to the blaze,
while Murdoch stood behind. When no comment came,
he turned his head and saw Murdoch standing quite still,
slowly pulling his black beard, but with something of a
sardonic smile on his outshot lips and a gleam in his
eyes.
"Ay," he said as soon as he saw MacNab's stare.
"Ay, that's so. The fellow had come up to bring away
Haggerty's gun, and when he'd taken his chance he
threw the gun into the water."
MacNab was puzzled. Something lay behind. At a
venture he said:
"Queer thing for him to do, surely—when he'd gone


THE GROUSE MOOS MURDER
They were both standing looking through the door at
the falling rain. The car had not yet come round, and
the man with MacNab's traps was standing in the shel-
ter of the porch.
"Strange how people forget their umbrellas and their
waterproofs in a climate like ours," Mr. Bray remarked.
"Umbrellas, yes, but surely not waterproofs," MacNab
amended.
"Oh, yes, waterproofs too," Mr. Bray asserted.
"You've just said you forgot yours."
MacNab smiled.
"I'm afraid your Bishop Butler would not support you
there, Mr. Bray. He'd call that a generalization from a
single instance."
Mr. Bray, still with his eyes on the falling rain, nodded.
"Yes, I know; it's bad logic to do that. But I'm not
really. There was Mr. Willoughby, who forgot his when
he went off to Inverness. And there was Brent, too, who
forgot where he'd put his that same morning. And Cress-
well, who forgot he'd taken it from the cloak-room where
Brent forgot he'd put it the day before, and—" He broke
off suddenly as the footman pushed open the door and
entered.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, sir," he said. "Green must
have forgotten. I'll go and hurry him up."
MacNab let the man go without a word. He had been
startled. He was uncertain whether or no Bray had been
saying something he wanted to say or only blundering
out something, the significance of which he did not appre-
ciate. As he stared hard at him Bray turned to the table
close to the door and began to play idly with the letters
there deposited to be collected later by the postman.
One of them took his eye, and with a little laugh he
pushed it apart from the others.


THE THREE POSTAGE STAMPS 257
"So she got them, after all!" he said.
MacNab saw the letter was one addressed to P. H.
Cresswell, Esq., at the Regent Hotel, St. Andrews.
"Got what?" he asked.
Bray's finger went to the three green postage stamps
on the letter.
"The two halfpenny ones she was looking for last night.
I offered her one three-halfpenny one, but she said she
had a halfpenny stamp, and just wanted two others so's
to use up the one she had." Mr. Bray laughed again.
"People say women are generous in big things and spoil
it all by being mean in small things that don't matter;
but I don't believe it was that in her case, anyway." He
turned round. "D'ye know what I think makes her al-
ways use three stamps on her letters?" he inquired.
MacNab's heart had begun to thump.
"No," he said in a voice that to himself seemed not
so loud as the drumming in his ears.
"Well," Mr. Bray nodded confidentially as the car
wheels sounded on the gravel outside, "I think it's pure
superstition that makes her do it. Her brother does the
same in his letters to her, as I've noticed. Superstition
—green for luck, if you know what I mean."
MacNab was not sure he had meant all he said; but
when the car reached the town he sent it on with his
things to the railway station and then himself made for
the police station.
Sergeant Cameron was seated at his desk as he entered.
"The superintendent in?" he asked.
"Not till nine, sir," the sergeant replied.
MacNab saw the stripes on his sleeve and guessed his
identity.
"Sergeant, tell me this: When you re-addressed that
letter to P. H. Cresswell, what stamps did you put on


EXPOSURE
263
I wonder what he made of it!"
"He'll wait," Rintoul nodded confidently, "he'll wait
for the next one at least."
"Well, I hope you're right. Look at this last message
from him to his sister. He seems all on edge."
Rintoul stroked his chin thoughtfully.
"In any case," he remarked, "I haven't got enough
evidence to apply for a warrant yet."
"No," MacNab admitted. "By themselves this inter-
change of messages proves nothing. But I believe we
can get enough evidence before the day is out to hang
him, only, you see, I'm afraid he won't stay to be
hanged."
"Look here," Rintoul said quickly, "I can put a call
through to the St. Andrews police to keep him under
observation while we are obtaining the evidence you
speak of."
"Good. That will do," MacNab agreed, "and the
sooner you get on to them the better."
As they made for Rintoul's office MacNab saw the
sergeant lingering uncertainly behind. It was obvious
that Cameron wanted to hear the whole of MacNab's
story about the man who was his own suspect. He
beckoned him to follow.
"We'll want the sergeant," he said to Rintoul while
the superintendent was looking up the number.
"Certainly," he agreed. "After all, this is Cameron's
man."
They had to wait several minutes before being put
through the different exchanges. Rintoul made them sit
down.
"It's queer," MacNab said, "how once you know the
truth all the disconnected facts seem to fall into their


266
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
realize it as he sat there. The shock of Mr. Bray's
unconscious revelation, all the greater because it had
come at a moment when he had accepted defeat, was
passing. The immediate initiative had passed on to the
St. Andrews police, to Munro and to Grant. Till their
work was done there was nothing for him to do but wait
and be as lazily reminiscent as he liked.
"They're a mighty clever family, these Cresswells,"
he said as he touched off the end of his cigarette into the
ash-bowl. "That sister of his, now, she—what's the new
phrase?—led me up the garden every time. I'd like fine,
Rintoul, to have seen all the other messages she sent him
under her three halfpenny stamps. But maybe it's bet-
ter for my self-respect that I can't. 'It's Joliffe now,'
she writes. Mark that 'now,' Rintoul. She knew I was
after Willoughby before I got on to Joliffe, and it wouldn't
surprise me if she even knew it was Bray before him,
and Toplis also. And it was herself who put me on to
Joliffe. Yes, Joliffe made a good suspect after I heard
about his loss of temper on the tennis courts. She has
a nerve! I wonder if she laughed at dinner that night.
Everybody else knew that dinner had been postponed
fifteen minutes; that I discovered afterwards. She
didn't tell me about the postponement, you see. I was
the only one she didn't tell, because she thought I might
go back to my room, and she wanted all the time she
could get in my room for herself. Rintoul, that was why
I couldn't tell you who the man was who was searching
my room." MacNab banged his fist on the table.
"How she must have laughed when she saw me look-
ing for the chalk mark on Toplis, on Willoughby, and
even on Bray's coat; never thought of looking at her.
But it wouldn't have been there if I had. Yes, and about
that shooting party; I had almost forgotten that." He


2 68
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
On the other side of the broad table MacNab sat for-
ward, too, his arms resting on the leather-covered sur-
face.
"When I first sat in this chair," he began, "and we
talked this case over, I remember your saying that a
murder staged—staged was the word you used, I think
—a murder staged as a shooting accident looked like the
perfect murder. If I didn't quite agree about that, I cer-
tainly agreed with you when you said there were only
two difficulties to be overcome—to get close enough to
your victim, and to make sure there was at least one
spent cartridge left in his gun."
"I ought to have put a third," Rintoul interrupted:
"You have to make sure, too, that the size of the shot
afterwards found in the body is the same as that which
the victim was using in his own gun."
From the far end of the table Sergeant Cameron
glanced at MacNab to see how he could possibly over-
come this difficulty.
"Yes," MacNab agreed, "that was a hard nut to crack.
Brent was using No. 6's, and you found No. 5's in the
body. For while it seemed to prove an attempt on his
life, it averted suspicion from the other members of the
party who were using the same ammunition as Brent."
He looked up. "Candidly, it's a nut I haven't yet
cracked; but I've a notion that when your man brings in
the gamekeeper, Murdoch, we'll open it all right."
Rintoul fidgeted in his chair, like a man with some-
thing to say who is not sure whether to say it or not.
"It's rather late in the day to speak of it," he said,
after a moment, "but I may tell you that Haggerty's gun
didn't fire that shot. After we recovered it from the
water Haggerty was informed of the fact, and he ad-
mitted he had thrown it there on the day he was caught


EXPOSURE
269
in the wood."
"Good!" MacNab said, "that's useful. You'll see why
presently it's not at all too late in the day to be sure of
that. Now, the first difficulty you spoke of needn't keep
us long," he resumed with a glance at the sergeant.
"Cameron here worked that out. I don't doubt Cress-
well made his approach exactly as he thought; and just
as he supposed, too, Cresswell's precaution against being
seen by Brent or any of the others prevented him from
getting quite near enough. No trouble there. The
trouble was to solve the problem presented by the gun."
Just as Cameron, hearing this, sat forward in eager
expectancy, the telephone whirred abruptly. Rintoul
picked up the receiver and Cameron sat back to wait.
"Oh I" they heard Rintoul say as he listened.
A lengthy silence followed, in which they saw the
superintendent's face first cloud and then brighten.
"Very well," he said at last, "ring me up as soon as
they return."
He replaced the receiver.
"That was the St. Andrews people. They've been
round to the hotel, and find Cresswell and Harwood left
on Saturday, to spend the week-end in Edinburgh. They
were away last week-end, too, it appears."
"No Sunday golf at St. Andrews, perhaps," MacNab
suggested.
"Don't think so," Rintoul said.
"The St. Andrews people don't think it a flight?" Mac-
Nab asked.
"Oh, no. They only took suit cases with them; said
they'd be back round about six."
"There was that letter you sent with the wrong stamp
on it, Rintoul."
Rintoul looked at his sergeant with a smile.


EXPOSURE
271
live one and then inserting a dead one in Brent's gun,
but the much more easy trick of exchanging a spent for
a live cartridge in his own gun." Pausing to see a light
break in on the others, MacNab saw only two foreheads
furrowed with thought.
"Look here, sergeant," he resumed, "in your report you
say that when you asked them to indicate the spot where
Brent fell they picked up their things and you then fol-
lowed them to the spot?"
"That's what happened," the sergeant said.
"Yes. You followed with the one gun that had been
left, which you naturally assumed to be Brent's."
Cameron sat up with a jerk.
"You mean Cresswell deliberately took Brent's gun?"
"Of course. He had to. Brent was in no state to
claim his gun, and the others wouldn't notice at such a
moment, anyhow. You see why it was he had to bring
in his own gun, after inserting a fresh charge? If he'd
left his gun behind he couldn't pretend to have taken up
Brent's gun by mistake."
Here the sergeant's growing excitement overcame him.
His heavy fist came down with a bang on the table.
"Craig Dhu!" he cried. "That's just what he did, and
then had us to prove himself at least was innocent, since
it was his gun I got fully loaded."
"Exactly," MacNab agreed. "That's where the subt-
lety comes in."
Rintoul was impressed. When a knock came on the
door he took no notice of it. He wanted more. This,
when taken with the messages exchanged under cover of
the postage stamps, made first-class circumstantial evi-
dence. But he was impatient to know how much more
they had. Not that time pressed; no action could come
before six that evening, when Cresswell and Harwood got


EXPOSURE
275
catch somewhere.
"He'd come in to get the tennis balls, hadn't he?"
"Not him. If he had, the car would have passed him
on the road."
"But we ourselves saw him going back."
"Yes, after he'd shot Brent. When the car passed the
tennis courts Cresswell was in the wood below the drive.
As soon as he saw it go he knew his chance had come.
The house was empty except for the housekeeper; but
notice this: When he got to the library door he found it
locked; but he had another key in his pocket. He had
got that somehow, for he knew his best chance of coming
on Brent alone would be in that same room. Why didn't
he use it now? He couldn't, because the other key was
in the lock." MacNab bent forward to tap the table
with a very stiff forefinger. "Rintoul, you found all the
windows shut and fastened when you got there. Who
shut the one Frossard left open? Who shut it? Tell me
that! That's what took my eye whenever I read the
precognitions. Frossard said he was sitting reading by
the open window. Frossard said he was getting enough
fresh air by the open window without going out in the
car. Frossard went back, or tried to, because he was
afraid his notes would get blown away in the draught
from the open window. But you found no open window
when you got on the scene."
"Well," Rintoul said, "Brent himself may have shut
it."
MacNab rapped the table hard.
"Not him! He'd have escaped death if he did—that
day, at least. But somebody shut it; and there was no
one else to do it except Cresswell. Even supposing Brent
shut the window, he had no need to fasten the catch;
but Cresswell had need to fasten it, just as he must leave
.


EXPOSURE
277
both on the moor and at Duchray."
Rintoul nodded slowly, biting his lip.
"Yes, it's a good reconstruction," he said. "It could
have been done like that. But if he did play that trick
with the box of balls, and we can prove he did, it will be
one more link in the chain of circumstantial evidence
against him. Indeed," he went on, "if we can prove that
trick with the tennis balls it, together with the trick with
the stamps, will do the trick with the jury." He glanced
at the clock. "Grant seems to be having trouble, though."
In saying this, Rintoul had voiced MacNab's own ap-
prehension. There could not, he was sure, be many
dealers in sports goods in such a small town. Finally
Rintoul, now very restless, dispatched Cameron to look
for the constable. The superintendent had been stung
to the quick by the way in which he himself had been
used as a witness for Cresswell's alibi. He did not doubt
that Cresswell had hung about on the road waiting for
the police to pass him but if he had gone to the town
even as little as two hours earlier than the time at which
they passed him—well—he would find his trick cut both
ways.
Grant was apologetic when Cameron brought him in.
He had found the shop, Macpherson's in Nevis Street,
but the assistant who had sold the box was ill in bed at
home. Rintoul cut him short.
"Did you see him?" he asked.
"Yes, sir. He remembered all about it; but he didn't
sell the gentleman any tennis balls on that day."
"What?" Rintoul almost shouted.
"He stuck to it, sir. He knows the gentleman well by
sight; said I could go back to the shop and see the day-
book with the sale entries for myself. The which I did,
sir."


EXPOSURE
279
would guess that the three green halfpenny stamps were
being used instead of the one pink stamp because they
covered a larger space on the envelope."
"That reminds me, now I think of it," MacNab said.
"I think we'd better have Mr. Bray down to see you.
He seems to know something about that white Burberry
as well."
They were back in the office waiting for the call from
St. Andrews long before the hour of Cresswell's return
from Edinburgh. Rintoul was all on edge. As for Mac-
Nab, the excitement in the case was already over, and
he had begun to think of the fish in Loch Laggan once
more. To fill in the last slow-moving hours Rintoul dis-
patched Munro to invite Mr. Bray to the office. At six
o'clock he called up St. Andrews for news. MacNab ad-
mired the self-restraint which had stopped the superin-
tendent from doing this earlier. But the St. Andrews
police had no news to give, except that their men were
already in the hotel to arrest Cresswell the moment he
returned—which, of course, Rintoul knew already. At
six-thirty no call had come, but soon afterwards, as if
to fill in the blankness and relieve the tension, Mr. Bray
was ushered in together with the evening's mail, the inter-
ception of which Rintoul had forgotten to countermand.
When Rintoul discovered among the letters one addressed
to Miss Cresswell, the meek little tutor was given a
seat against the wall. Rintoul silently held the letter up
with its three halfpenny stamps. MacNab stared at it.
"Yes," he said; "but it's the postmark that matters
now."
Rintoul twisted the envelope round to read it.
"Dundee!" he whispered.
"Posted nine forty-five, Saturday night." MacNab
nodded. "You might look into the shipping intelligence


282
THE GROUSE MOOR MURDER
letter, I put two and two together, if you know what
I mean."
"Not yet," Rintoul said.
"Well, it's all quite simple, really." He waved his
hand encouragingly at Rintoul. "You see, remembering
all that, it came back to me. I once told Miss Cresswell
I had just lost one of my most valued possessions—a
threepenny piece with the Lord's Prayer engraved on one
side of it—complete, if you know what I mean."
Rintoul gaped for a moment as if he were about to
say something. Then a light broke in upon him.
"So you think that gave her the idea for the stamp
trick?"
"Naturally," Mr. Bray nodded. "Wouldn't you?"
Rintoul did not reply to the question.
"Well," he said, "I'll say this for you: you're not half
so big a fool as you look. You'll make quite an excep-
tional parson."
"Oh, I don't know," Mr. Bray said. "People will still
go on thinking about us as they do. It's that play, The
Private Secretary, if you know what I mean."