Three knots : a mystery

Chapter I

“There is a mystery about this affair that I cannot fathom, a complete and inscrutible mystery.”

Silence followed these words. The Chief Constable, to whom the remark had been more particularly ad¬ dressed, looked down for a moment, and then stared hard at the blank wall at the extreme end of the room. Again his eyes met the Coroner’s. His lips parted and he seemed about to speak, when the Coroner, not notic¬ ing this, went on:

“If anybody here,” he said in a solemn voice, “has an opinion to express, or can suggest any solution, let him, or her, do so now. Failing this, the verdict must be that this most unfortunate young woman’s death is due to strangulation, and that she has been brutally done to death by some person or persons unknown.”

He cast a questioning glance around, but still no one spoke. The only sound audible was the sobbing of Mrs. Ashcombe, the victim’s mother, and of Charlotte, her maid, whose evidence had been taken.

“Then you have nothing further to add, Mrs. Ash¬ combe?” he asked suddenly, focussing his gaze upon the weeping widow.

She looked up slowly and her tear-laden eyes met the Coroner’s cold stare. With a shake of the head she replied, almost inaudibly:

“Nothing, I can think of nothing.”

The Coroner bit his lip, and once more looked about him. Swiftly his glance passed from face to face in keen, searching scrutiny. He looked hard at the Chief Constable. The man stared boldly back. His mouth was tightly shut now. Whatever he might some moments before have contemplated saying, he no longer meant to say.

What had happened may be briefly told.

Some two-and-a-half years previously Mrs. Ashcombe and her pretty daughter, Ella, had come to live in the neighbourhood. Who they were, and whence they came, nobody exactly knew. They had bought an old picturesque cottage within a mile or two of Shadcombe, and overlooking the sea, midway between that town and Dawlish, to be precise, and close to a sleepy old-world hamlet, Holcombe by name.

Some of the residents in both places had called upon them, and all had pronounced the w 7 idow to be a charm¬ ing woman, cultivated, well-read, and intelligent. Apparently, too, she had travelled, while the fact that she could read and speak several foreign tongues had impressed the local residents considerably. She seemed to be “comfortably circumstanced,” as they expressed it, also a woman of exceptional refinement.

Her daughter, Ella, everybody liked exceedingly. Even the admittedly pretty girls of Shadcombe sang her praises, a thing they rarely did when a stranger, at least as good-looking as themselves, came to live in the vicinity.

“She is so utterly sweet, one can’t help loving her,”

was the sort of remark heard at tea-parties in the dis¬ trict when her name chanced to be mentioned. True, the encomium was sometimes tempered by some such corollary as “I wonder who the Ashcombes are, and where they really come from?” or “It seems strange we know so little about either of them,” but that was only to be expected under the circumstances.

Occasionally, too, conjectures would be hazarded. Somebody “had heard,” or “it was said,” that the widow’s life had been none too happy; that her husband had “drunk secretly” before his death, and so forth.

Still, Mrs. Ashcombe and Ella’s popularity had been general in the neighbourhood during the two-and-a-half years they had lived there. Then one day. . . .

It was a terrible story, that had been related in detail at the inquest.

Ella Ashcombe had, it appeared, been in the habit of bicycling over to Shadcombe early every morning, being engaged in some charitable work there, and of riding back to Holcombe in the evening. She had, whenever possible, lunched at one of the leading hotels with a young solicitor in practice in Shadcombe, Gerald Grey, at one time of the Diplomatic Service, and resi¬ dent in London.

One evening, the night of the 16th of February, a very rough and windy night, with rain descending in sheets, Mrs. Ashcombe had been telegraphed for from Exeter to come at once to a dying friend who had, the message ran, expressed an earnest wish to see her again before the end. The doctor had signed the message after adding an earnest hope that Mrs. Ashcombe would come in all haste, as her friend had not long to live.

Mrs. Ashcombe had, accordingly, started out at once u for Exeter in her car, leaving Ella alone in Gareth Cottage, with their old and faithful servant, Charlotte. The cook, a recent importation from Torquay, had, unfortunately that very morning, given notice in a fit of temper, and gone home.

When, next morning, Charlotte had gone upstairs to awaken her young mistress and take her her tea, she had found the door of the bedroom locked. Unable to get a reply to her repeated calling and knocking, she had, suddenly terrified, rushed out of the house, and raised the alarm.

Upon the door being forced open, Ella Ashcombe had been found lying in bed, quite dead, and the room was in great disorder. At once the police had been summoned by telephone, and then the shocking dis¬ covery had been made that the poor girl had been strangled. Round her neck a bit of string was still tied tightly, a length of tarred twine with three rather curious knots in it.

It is unnecessary to recount the searching inquiries which followed. It is enough to say that no clue of any sort could be discovered which might have helped the police in their task of finding the murderer or mur¬ derers, nor could any trace be found of the assassin in either the house itself or the grounds. By what manner he had entered the cottage it was, of course, also impossible to say, though it seemed clear that he must have entered by the bedroom window and gone out the same way.

Only, when the body was found, about seven o’clock in the morning, it was already cold, from which the police not unnaturally inferred that the crime must have been committed some hours previously.

That, condensed, was the story narrated at the inquest. It was, the Coroner said, quite the most astonishing and baffling mystery he had ever had to deal with. Neither Mrs. Ashcombe nor her daughter were known to have an enemy in the world, and as apparently nothing had been stolen from the house, no motive for the crime could be assigned. Naturally rumours, the majority of which were of a fantastic description, had, he said, become rife in the vicinity within the past day or two, but he felt sure nobody of intelligence would pay attention to them.

Most silent of all the witnesses throughout the inquiry had been Gerald Grey, the young solicitor to whom Ella had for six months or so been engaged to be married. Gloomy, morose, almost taciturn, he had sat there with his face between his fists, his elbows on the table, apparently deep in thought. Only when addressed had he spoken, and then he had replied in monosyllables. So strange, indeed, had his bearing been, that more than once the Coroner had been unable to resist the temptation to try to draw him out.

“If you will allow me to say so, Mr. Grey” he had observed quite caustically, “this terrible affair appears to distress you less than one would have expected it to do under the circumstances. You were, I under¬ stand, betrothed to the deceased?”

“Yes,” came the monosyllabic answer.

“Then do you not feel this tragedy acutely?”

“Yes.”

“Yet you have no comment whatsoever to make upon it?”

The Coroner, baffled, had shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh, very well,” he had ended dryly. “Gentlemen, I have nothing further to say.”

“But I have a word to say!” Grey had suddenly exclaimed in quite a different tone, rising abruptly from his seat. “I should like to say that in my opinion you have spoken a great deal too much throughout these proceedings, and made some most indiscreet comments.”

To this gratuitous insult the Coroner had paid no heed, and soon afterwards the jury had found their verdict and risen.

As they solemnly filed out one by one into the street, a weather-beaten man of uncertain age, wearing cordu¬ roys and a frayed jersey, and smoking a short pipe, eyed them with a bovine stare.

When the last had passed him by, he spat viciously upon the pavement, and began to mutter to himself. Then he stamped away with uncertain gait, to disap¬ pear some moments later behind the swing doors of a public-house.

That evening the local police again reviewed all the facts of the case. With a certain feeling of deference, which they would not have admitted, they listened to the views expressed by the London detectives who had arrived in the town on the day the crime had been discovered. These detectives, as is their wont, immedi¬ ately dismissed as “most improbable” every possible solution advanced by the local constabulary. Their own opinions, however, they kept carefully to them¬ selves. Upon only one point were they and the “locals,” as they termed them, in agreement. Whoever had committed the crime must have had some strong motive for his action.

Finally they gathered together the few shreds of evidence in an abortive attempt to piece them into one.

First, there was the length of tarred twine with the three knots in it, with which the victim had been strangled.

Then there was the unaccounted-for jagged cut on the middle finger of the victim’s left hand.

Also to be taken into account was the fact that the assassin, man or woman, had been clearly an active person, for in order to enter the window the culprit had clambered up a rain-pipe, scraping the wall-plaster on both sides of it.

And while they talked, and talked, repeating plati¬ tude after platitude, and insisting upon the accuracy of statements the obviousness of which should have been patent to all, less than a mile away a young man lay upon a bed, sobbing his heart out. At intervals he groaned aloud; but he was alone and he believed that none heard him.

Nor would any of those present at the inquest that morning have believed, had they seen him now, lying there rent with emotion and racked with grief, that this was the morose man who during the proceedings had seemingly been so indifferent and callous.

That, however, was his nature. Almost from his childhood his self-control at times when he found him¬ self face to face with some deep sorrow, or in moments of crisis, had been remarkable. At such times he would show no sign whatever of distress. Yet when alone again and hidden from the world, he would give way completely, opening the flood-gates of his sorrow to their widest.

Gerald Grey was a man of remarkable ability, with a public school and a university education. He had put his heart and soul into the work when he had entered the Diplomatic Service, and it had been a great grief to him to be unable to remain in it. But misfortune had overtaken him, or rather his father, a doctor by profession, but an inveterate gambler and speculator. Year after year the old man had lived in the firm hope, which amounted to a conviction, that one day he would make a big coup and thus amass at a fell swoop, if not a fortune, at any rate a sum suf¬ ficient to enable him to abandon medicine, and live out the remainder of his life in idle ease.

Of course, it had not happened. Such events rarely do, least of all when they are expected to. As he put it, he had taken a “sporting chance”; in other words he had staked two-thirds of the whole of his capital upon a venture he had been assured by “an exceptionally well-informed” friend was “bound to jump in the market.” The shares had certainly jumped, but they had jumped down. First only a little way, then they had crept down, and down, and down, until his capital had dwindled almost out of sight.

There was nothing for it but to sell his house, mortgage a little property he possessed, and cut down his son’s allowance to a minimum. This stroke of ill-luck, as the old man termed it, though in reality it was his own stroke of stupidity, his son had borne with commendable fortitude. He had not uttered a ;word of protest—what would have been the use when the thing was done, he said to himself. On the con¬ trary, he had done his best to cheer his father up, and then, with an aching heart and the ambition of his life crushed, had withdrawn from the Diplomatic Serv¬ ice and manfully set to work to serve his articles in a West End solicitor’s office. With little difficulty he had passed the examinations, and with what money he and his father could scrape together, had set up as a solicitor in Shadcombe.

There he had soon become popular. He was capable, prompt, tactful, and invariably courteous. Most im¬ portant of all, he quickly gained a reputation for absolute integrity. In addition, there was that about him which inspired confidence. By mothers with daugh¬ ters to “get off” he was smiled upon. With transparent cunning they strove to ensnare him in matrimonial meshes, but he paid not the slightest heed. Their little efforts amused him. Indeed, it was not his intention to marry at any rate, until he felt the income he was earning justified his doing so. He had seen too much of “poor” marriages, he would say. No man—this was his expressed theory—had a right to marry until in a position to support a wife.

And that he would soon be in that position seemed likely as the mothers of daughters were quick to realise. His clientele increased rapidly, somewhat to his astonishment.

Then one day he met Ella Ashcombe, and at once his theories and his views on matrimony were swept away, and with them the hopes of all mothers with marriageable daughters, except Mrs. Ashcombe. For at their first meeting he fell hopelessly in love with Ella, and made up his mind to marry her if she would accept him.

It was past midnight when he at last arose, and began to pace the room.

“My God,” he cried out. “Oh Heaven, why did I do it? Why? Why?"

For some moments he paused, his fingers pressed upon his closed eyes. His brain throbbed. His brow felt on fire. Then, turning suddenly, he went over to his dressing-table. A framed portrait stood there.

Taking it up gently with both hands he held it to the light, the while gazing down into the eyes which looked up so steadfastly into his own.

And, on a sudden impulse, he pressed the picture to his lips.

Two servant maids sat up in their beds, staring at each other with frightened faces.

“What ought us to du about ut?” one of them said at last.

The other began to cry. She was too upset to reply.

“Us both heard un,” the first speaker went on. “Awe, du stop ut, Mary. Yer’m timid as a mouse. What was ut ’e sayde? ‘Heavens, why did I du ut?’ Awe, ’tis awful, sure ’nuff. Us ort to inform the police. But us baint goin’ tu, be us?”

The other mopped her eyes with a dirty pocket-handkerchief.

“Naw,” was the only word she could manage to get out. “Naw,” she repeated.

Some minutes later they blew out the candle and soon both were fast asleep.

Chapter II

Mrs. William Monckton —“Mrs. Willie” as her inti¬ mates called her—was generally admitted to be the prettiest woman in Shadcombe.

Now, that is saying a good deal, for, at the time the story opens, Shadcombe was renowned far beyond the bounds of Devonshire for its pretty girls and handsome women.

“The place is crawling with ’em, bless ’em, it’s crawling with ’em,” a retired Colonel, member of the Shadcombe Club, had one day remarked with consider¬ able emphasis.

And he spoke only the truth.

Mrs. Willie Monckton, however, undoubtedly topped the bill, and she succeeded in squeezing some measure of enjoyment out of life. For her husband, a rich man, never stinted her, and he liked her to dress well—which she invariably did—and to amuse herself to the best of her ability.

Shadcombe in February, in spite of its pretty women, is not the most cheerful place to live in. Some of its pleasure-loving aborigines were wont to refer to is as “a deadly dull hole,” but it is hardly that. Com¬ pared with other seaside resorts of its size, its atmos¬ phere is probably neither less exhilarating nor more depressing than that of any of them.

The principal forms of winter diversion, at the time 21 to which reference is made, were whist-drives and bridge-parties and tea-parties, with a little mild flirta¬ tion sandwiched in between. True, some years before there had been a distressing episode.

But that is another story. Unrefined folk indige¬ nous to the town, still snigger when the incident is spoken of. That it proved, however, an excellent advertisement for the place the District Council will admit.

Of the tea-and-talk parties just mentioned, without a doubt the pleasantest and best-appointed were those arranged by Mrs. Willie Monckton at her “stately residence, lying and being situate,” as the auctioneers and estate agents once described it, “on the slope of a steep incline upon the outskirts of the town.”

The majority of these gatherings were more or less informal. At that time young men in Shadcombe were conspicuous by their absence, but Mrs. Willie Monckton made up for the lack of male admiration, which emphatically was her due, by gathering about her a coterie of young women and pretty girls who admired her to the point of adoration.

It was at one of these “teas” then, on a wet after¬ noon towards the end of March, that the Holcombe Mystery, as it had come to be called, became once more the topic of conversation.

A week after the inquest Mrs. Ashcombe had left the neighbourhood. Whither she had gone, or how long she would be away, nobody knew, nor had anybody in or about Shadcombe heard from her or anything about her since her departure. The house had been shut up and remained so. Indeed, recollection of the crime seemed gradually to be fading, when on this par¬ ticular afternoon it came once more into prominence.

“I heard a curious rumour yesterday,” Vera Trevor remarked inconsequently during a lull in the conver¬ sation. “It was about poor Mrs. Ashcombe.”

She was quite a little girl with brown eyes and olive skin. The others called her “Zip.”

“They say she won’t come back here and that her cottage is to be sold.”

“Oh! When did you hear that?”

“Last night. I expect she feels that to live in that house again after what has happened there, would be impossible. I can’t say I am surprised.”

Zip had long black lashes, and a way of looking down which displayed them very effectively. She looked down now. They were, certainly, extraordina¬ rily long lashes. And their curve was quite unusual.

“Who told you, Vera?” Mrs. Monckton asked. She always went straight to the point. She used herself to say that she “got to the root of things.”

“Well, I don’t think I ought to tell you really,” Vera replied, after a moment’s hesitation.

“You ought not to—‘really,’ but all the same you will.”

Again it was Mrs. Monckton:

“No, you needn’t trouble to, for I am sure I know who told you. It was Mrs. Jacob Mulhall.”

Vera’s look betrayed the truth.

“As you have guessed,” she said at last, “I suppose it can’t matter if I tell you more. But mind, I don’t say that what she said is true. She herself said it might possibly not be true.”

“What was it anyhow?”

“Well, Mrs. Mulhall said, or rather she implied— she did not actually say so—that poor Mrs. Ashcombe is being watched.”

24*

“Watched!” came the exclamation in chorus.

Then Mrs. Monckton inquired calmly:

“Watched by whom, Vera?”

“Oh, by the police, I suppose. Whom else could she be watched by?”

Mrs. Willie signalled silence. This clearly was a matter of quite exceptional importance, and as such they had a claim to it.

“Come and sit over here, Vera,” she said, pulling a comfortable chair close to her own. “Now, tell us all about it, just exactly what she said. For my part, I can’t believe there is a word of truth in this. Still, sometimes that woman’s stories . . . .”

“All right, Mrs. Willie” Vera Trevor answered.

It was a quaint conceit they had, these friends of hers, this trick of calling her “Mrs. Willie.” None could have told who had first started it, or how it had originated. Still, there it was. In a way it implied respect, and Mrs. Willie, though a delightful woman, in no way patronising and not in the least “stuck-up,” liked it.

“Now, disgorge every word,” she said, smiling. “You must tell us all you were told.”

Thus adjured, Vera began:

“I met Mrs. Mulhall in Bank Street yesterday eve¬ ning, and directly she saw me she came across the street. ‘I have something so exciting to tell you, dear,’ she said—you know the way she gushes. Then she took me on to The Den, as she said she wanted to get me alone, and there went on with the story. ‘I was told it at lunch to-day by someone well informed,’ she said. ‘He came down from London this morning and said he had something to tell me that he knew would interest me very much. He said it concerned poor Mrs. Ashcombe.’”

“Did she say with whom she had lunched?” a voice interrupted eagerly.

“Of course, she didn’t,” Mrs. Monckton cut in. “That would have betrayed the name of her informant. But I shall soon find out. Go on, Vera.”

“Well, it seems that this man, whoever he was, had met another man in London, and that the other man told him he had heard there were rumours that poor Mrs. Ashcombe herself could, if she wished to, throw some light on what happened on the night of poor Ella’s death”—neither Mrs. Ashcombe nor her daugh¬ ter was ever spoken of now without the prefix “poor.”

“Oh, surely that must be wrong.”

“Just what I said. But Mrs. Jacob Mulhall declared her friend had said that the other man had said there couldn’t be a doubt there was something in it, and that probably we should soon-”

“Something in what?”

“Silence!” Mrs. Willie ejaculated sharply.

“Why, in the story or the rumour, about poor Mrs. Ashcombe. Mrs. Mulhall said her friend had said his friend implied that poor Mrs. Ashcombe was hiding something, something she knew which——”

“She couldn’t hide anything she didn’t know, Vera,” Mrs. Willie murmured softly, and the others laughed. “Never mind, go ahead.”

“Something she knew concerning poor Ella’s death. Then Mrs. Mulhall went on to say that her friend said, ‘Mrs. Ashcombe was being kept under surveillance

“That means being dogged by detectives?”

“Yes, I suppose so; Mrs. Mulhall also reminded me that really none of us know much, or anything, about the Ashcombes, or even for certain where they came from when they came here. It seems, too, that the cook she dismissed has made some statements, disclosures of some kind, since the inquest.”

“To the police?”

“I suppose so. Furthermore, Mrs. Mulhall said we know nothing whatever about that friend of hers who died, or was said to have died, in Exeter, on the night of the crime. ‘Doesn’t it strike you as odd, Vera,’ she went on, breathing right into my face, ‘that Mrs. Ashcombe should suddenly have dismissed her cook with only a few hours’ warning, have gone herself to Exeter, or said she went there, and left Ella and their maid, Charlotte, alone in the house like that the whole night? And I was told,’ she was becoming quite excited, ‘that Mrs. Ashcombe answered in a most curious way at the inquest, and that she appeared terribly nervous and self-conscious the whole time. Really I begin to wonder,’ she added, ‘whether there isn’t something in this extraordinary report. If the police are watching her, you may be sure there is. I don’t mind telling you, dear,’ she finished off, ‘that in my secret heart, I was never quite sure about poor Mrs. Ashcombe; I mean whether I liked her or whether I didn’t. My first impression of her was certainly not favourable. I admit I got to like her afterwards in a way. Every¬ one about here did. She had a way with her.’ ”

“What else did she say?”

“I think that was all. I thought you would like to know. But please don’t say I told you. Mrs. Jacob Mulhall said I had ‘better not tell anybody—yet, as, of course, after all there might be nothing in it.’ ”

For some moments nobody spoke. All were busy thinking.

“Thank you, Vera,” Mrs. Willie said at last. “The thing certainly seems queer. However, we are bound to hear more about it soon—as Mrs. Mulhall knows.”

Mrs. Monckton was a tall, graceful, well-propor¬ tioned woman, with fair hair, a good complexion, which was natural to her, and grey-blue eyes full of expres¬ sion. All men admired her and not a few would have fallen head over heels in love with her had they dared. Fortunately for themselves, they did not dare. Mrs. Monckton was not a prude. On the other hand she would have snubbed promiscuous love-makers in a manner they would have remembered to their dying day.

Women for the most part admired her too, but only her coterie waxed enthusiastic upon the subject of her allurements. The rest tempered their admiration with frivolous fault-finding. Mrs. Monckton’s mouth was “too stern” to suit their taste, or she “looked too proud,” or “bad-tempered,” or “unsympathetic.” Also, they “disliked the way she dressed her hair.”

Perhaps Vera Trevor was Mrs. Willie’s greatest chum. The two went everywhere together, and when Mrs. Willie had no use for her car, Vera Trevor was sure to be seen driving in it. This favouritism, how¬ ever, aroused no jealousy in the breasts of the re¬ mainder of the coterie. Mrs. Willie was their Queen, and if she chose to single out for special honour any one of her courtiers, surely none had a right to protest ?

For a little while longer Mrs. Ashcombe and the tales about her were discussed. Some pronounced Mrs. Mulhall “a cackling old cat,” whatever kind of a hybrid that may be, whilst others took her part. After all, if Mrs. Ashcombe were eventually shown to be not the “nice” woman they had always considered her, would they not have Mrs. Mulhall to thank for her acumen in first making the discovery and putting them on their guard? Certainly the new light nowfocused upon the widow seemed to discover in her, blemishes which might eventually prove to be flaws.

Thus the ball was started. And as it rolled it grew. Within a week it had assumed really large dimensions. Mrs. Ashcombe—“poor” Mrs. Ashcombe—was sus¬ pected of the crime. She had quarrelled with Ella— “poor” Ella—three days before, and they had “not exchanged a word from that hour. Just think, their last words to each other were words spoken in anger.” It was “too terrible to think of.” And so they all talked and thought about it.

And about what had they quarreled? Ah! there was some mystery there, too. The cook, since her dismissal, had been heard to say that mother and daughter had spoken about “father.” It was con¬ cerning “father” that they had quarrelled.

But Mrs. Ashcombe was a widow, or supposed to be. Could it, then, be her own father they had talked about ?

“No!” the cook had declared emphatically, “because with me own ears I heard pore Miss Ella say, me father. Aw, yew may depend upon it there be more in this *yer than none of us do reckon on.”

Then, in Exeter, it seemed—Mrs. Mulhall had found this out—the police had failed to identify the doctor who had telegraphed to Mrs. Ashcombe that her friend was dying and wished to see her.

“Who saw the telegram?” Mrs. Mulhall asked triumphantly. “Tell me that, will you? Charlotte never saw it, for I asked her this very day.”

“Why, is Charlotte in the cottage still?” the friend she was addressing exclaimed in surprise. “I thought the house was shut up.”

“Ah, well my dear, there, I admit, I told you a white fib. I did not hear the statement actually from Charlotte’s lips. But our gardener’s wife was told so by Charlotte, and it was our gardener who told me yesterday. You are right, Gareth Cottage is shut up. Where Charlotte is I can’t tell you. She went off with her mistress. Perhaps,” she ended with a mean¬ ing nod, “she knew too much to be left behind.”

“Then who took in the telegram?”

“Ah, who took in the telegram. That is what we all wonder.”

“I suppose a wire did come?”

“That I have tried to find out at the post-office, but, would you believe it, they won’t tell me. The postmaster wouldn’t see me—sent out to say he was sorry he was too busy—and the girls in the post-office were rude—oh, so rude. One of them told me, to all intents, to mind my own business. As though an affair of this kind were not everybody’s business! No, if a telegram came, which I doubt, it must have been taken in by Mrs. Ashcombe herself, or else by Ella. If the dismissed cook had opened the door, we should have heard long ago about the telegram. She was probably gone by then.”