Chapter XL: The Woman with the Jug

The door shook under a heavy blow, and the Prior stood momentarily paralysed with terror and consternation.

“Open!”

Pawter too had recognised the voice of Inspector Bullott, and he drew a long sigh. In another second the Prior had lifted the lantern and blown out the light; there was the rattle of a key in a door, and a sound of creaking hinges; then followed a thud, as the door closed.

He was escaping through the smaller door, and he had hardly left the room before Pawter heard the sound of voices outside, the snap of a lock, and in another instant Bullott had dashed into the room, an electric torch in his hand.

“Where is he?” he asked.

Pawter nodded towards the small postern.

“Is there a key to this?” cried Bullott sharply.

Blackwood came into the cell, bearing a bunch of keys, his red face unusually pale. Five minutes were lost before the key was discovered. Bullott then found himself in a smaller stone lobby. From this led a door, which when it was opened, he discovered to be the postern gate through which the Grand Prior was admitted to the building. There was no sign of the man, nor was a search possible, for it opened on to the wild moor, now in complete darkness, and it would have required a battalion to have continued the search.

The inspector returned to the Priory and conducted a close examination of the priors. He came to the room into which Pawter had been ushered, with a story of failure.

“The Grand Prior and Brother James have gone,” he said, “and whoever the Prior may be, he is not Leiff Stone!”

Seeing that a search that night would be wasted labour, Bullott returned to the room which had been allotted to Pawter. Here he interrupted the publicity man in the midst of his recital. A further and more systematic search of the Priory led to no discovery of value, and at one o’clock in the morning the search party was withdrawn, to the relief of the ruffled Priors.

“I don’t know what action the Secretary of State will take now that this matter of the draw has been brought to his notice,” said Bullott, “but I suggest, Mr. Pawter, that until you learn the wishes of the members of your Order, you had better take up the duties of the Chief Prior.”

To his surprise, Pawter offered no objection to adopting this course, for apparently he had already decided what action he would take.

“I don’t suppose for one moment that our friend will return,” he said, “but if he does, I can promise you that I will place him immediately in your hands. As to taking control of the Order, that has already been provided for. I have a deed signed by Mr. Stone, authorising me to take charge if anything happened to him.”

“Did you recognise his voice?”

Pawter shook his head.

“No, though I’ll swear it was not Mr. Stone.”

Blackwood, the seneschal, was closely questioned, and added something to the detective’s knowledge. He remembered the night that Betty had been brought to the Priory, though he swore that she had not come through the main gates. The other Priors were unanimous that she had come there of her own free will, a pardonable error, for she had, apparently, walked to her chair unassisted; they had not been informed as to the meaning of the strange scene they had witnessed. All they knew was that the Grand Prior had addressed them an hour before the girl was brought in, and had told them that he was receiving a “divine visitor.” Nor did they know who were the two brethren who had stood on either side of her when the book was placed upon her knees. As to the book, that was as much of a mystery to them as it had been to the girl.

The Grand Prior was in the building the next morning. He seldom journeyed by day, left as a rule just before midnight, and drove his own car, which was kept in a small garage that had been built on the north side of the Priory wall.

Bullott went to inspect this building, and found, as he had expected, that it was empty. Further, the seneschal could not assist them, for he seldom saw the Prior himself except on extraordinary occasions, and he did not know how many days the head of the Order had been at the Priory before the startling events of that night.

The party drove back the way they had come, and nearing Two Bridges, Pawter, who accompanied them, remembered the old waiter who had a cottage on the moor.

“That must be the place,” he said, pointing to the little dwelling, visible in the light of the motor lamps.

As the car stopped before the door, it opened and Pawter saw the servant. He was a little tremulous at sight of so many people at such an hour of the night, but he had a tale to tell of a machine that had dashed past an hour before.

“A big black car with three men, and going at such a rate that I thought they’d turn over at the curve. I think they must have had an accident, because I heard the brakes go on, and a bump.”

Beyond the cottage the road turned abruptly, and here there was a wall which showed marks of collision.

“It wasn’t serious enough to stop them,” said Bullott after making his inspection. “Those were our men undoubtedly.”

A police patrol whom they met near Two Bridges had the same story to tell of a car that was thundering along the road in defiance of all speed regulations.

“I signalled them to stop, but they took no more notice of me than if I’d been a fly on the wall,” he said.

“Any number on the car?” asked Bullott hopefully.

“No, sir, they had no back light so far as I could see. They took the Exeter road.”

“I’ll get on the ’phone to the Exeter police,” said Bullott, after they had gained admission to the hotel, but in this project he was not successful. The wires which followed the Exeter road had been cut, and there was no other telephonic communication.

In point of fact the big black car did not take the risk of being observed in a fairly populous city where it must go at a slow pace. Five miles from the suburbs of Exeter, Joshua Laffin leant across to the driver and bawled in his ear:

“Keep away from Exeter. There’s a by-road to the left that takes you past Taunton.”

Captain Harvey Hale waved his hand, not taking his eyes from the road ahead.

At eight o’clock that morning Dr. Laffin arrived at Bath Station, caught the early train, and was in his home before eleven o’clock. Detectives watching the house saw him come, and duly reported his arrival to Bullott, but long before the inspector was on the spot, Mr. William Holbrook was knocking at the front door, which was opened by Laffin’s servant.

“The master is busy,” she said.

“I’m busy too,” said Bill, and pushed past her.

Without a word he turned the handle of the study door, threw it open and walked inside. The room was, as usual, heavily curtained, and the only light was a candle upon the table. Dr. Laffin was nowhere to be seen.

“I thought he was there, sir,” said the girl, aghast. “He must be in his room. I’ll run up.”

She came down in a few minutes with the news that the doctor was not in the house.

As he stood there, the area door below opened and an elderly woman in an old mantle, and carrying a big milk jug and a key in her hand, came out, shuffled down the path and turned towards the station. It was apparently Laffin’s cook. He saw the two detectives watching on the opposite side of the road, and knew there was no chance of the man escaping. Turning to the girl, who was standing aimlessly in the passage, he asked:

“What time did the doctor come back?”

“About ten o’clock, sir. I told him the police were coming here----”

“You told him that, did you?”

“Oh yes, sir, they quite frightened me. There have been two men watching this house all the morning and all last night. I got so nervous that I nearly went home to my mother.”

“But why do that?” said Bill good-humouredly. “Surely the cook is some sort of protection, isn’t she?”

“Cook, sir?” said the girl in surprise. “We haven’t got a cook. I do all the cooking there is.”

“But who’s the elderly woman in the kitchen downstairs?”

She shook her head.

“There isn’t any elderly woman, sir. We have a charwoman in once a week, but this is not her day.”

A sudden suspicion shot through Holbrook’s mind, and he ran out of the front door, down into the street, and gazed the way the old woman had gone. It was at that moment that Bullott arrived, and the reporter told him what he had seen.

“That was Laffin all right,” said Bullott. “He walked into the trap, and we hadn’t sufficient intelligence to close it on him.”

He called the two watchers and gave them instructions. In ten minutes all West London was looking for an elderly woman carrying a milk jug and a key.

Lord Lowbridge heard the news with a grave face.

“Impossible!” he said when they told him that Laffin was wanted for murder by poisoning. “My uncle died a natural death.”

“Who gave the certificate?” asked Bullott significantly, and Clive Lowbridge stared.

“I never thought of that. Of course, Dr. Laffin gave the certificate. But it is too preposterous--what could he hope to gain?”

“He could hope to make you a very rich man and trust that your generosity would reward him. He hoped also to hide the fact, which would have been discovered by Lord Lowbridge, and certainly should have been discovered by his lawyers, that a large parcel of land had been transferred to Laffin by means of forged deeds. In other words, my lord, Dr. Laffin is partly responsible for the poverty of your estate!”

Clive’s jaw dropped.

“It is incredible,” he muttered. And then, aloud, “I have never cared very much for Laffin, although I thought I owed him something, and probably your view as to what would have happened if I had inherited a large fortune is nearly accurate. As a matter of fact, I had decided in my mind to give the doctor a very substantial sum. He was always in debt, and generally in the worst kind of other trouble; it would have been a real pleasure to me to have relieved that state of affairs for him. And my cousin, too, you say?” He whistled. “It sounds like a page of an exciting novel, but I must believe you. Laffin is not like other men; his virtues and vices are equally bizarre.”

“Did he ever introduce you to the Proud Sons of Ragousa?”

“No, he never succeeded in shooting me into that crowd,” he said, “but it was not for want of trying. But that sort of mummery does not appeal to me, and my luck is so diabolical that I could never hope to have gained one of their big prizes. They give some prizes, don’t they? In fact”--there was a note of unhappiness in his laughter--“the biggest prize in all the world, which most men would have thought was easiest to gain, has so far escaped me--and it isn’t money.”