Chapter XXXIII

Dust and grime notwithstanding, it was a picturesque place into which they stumbled when they had made their way up the steep staircase. Huge rafters, of seasoned and blackened oak, spanned it, and from under the rafters, as they entered, half a dozen disturbed bats flew out and began to circle dismally round their heads. Two birds in noisy alarm dashed themselves violently against the sloping roof, and eventually, after some battering, made their way out through a broken skylight. This skylight, with another equally encrusted with dirt, provided all the light there was in the loft, save for a thin streak outlining what appeared to be a door in the riverside wall; but it was sufficient for them to see an odd collection of miscellaneous objects of all sorts, piled up anyhow on the floor, and all half buried in a thick layer of dust. Desolation could hardly go further.

“It’s in pretty much of a pickle,” the landlord said, surveying it. “You see, nobody comes up here nowadays. It’s months since I’ve been in the place myself. Every now and then I shove away something that’s not wanted, same as I shoved those statues; but, barring that, there’s no call to come here. ’Tisn’t worth while to keep the place clean.”

“But somebody’s been up here recently, all the same,” said Wilson, “or the trunk couldn’t have got down. Tread very carefully, all of you, so as not to disturb any traces. Walk along the outside beams. Hullo, here we are.” He pointed out some footprints which were plainly visible in the thick dust. “Almost as good as sand, for keeping traces. We’ll have a drawing of those in a minute. But this is rather odd.” He straddled from one beam to the next, and stood a moment staring at the prints. “I can’t understand this. But we can’t do much without more light. Is that a door over there?”

“Aye,” said Wason. “It’s in the gable--used to give on to that platform I told you about. Do you want it open, sir? I’ve got the key, but I doubt it’s stuck fast.”

“Why couldn’t I see the door from the outside?” Wilson asked. “I was looking at the inn from across the river just now, and there wasn’t a sign of it.”

“It don’t show from the outside, sir,” the landlord said. “When I had that wall stuccoed three years back, I let ’em carry the stuff right across the old door. There’s nothing but a line shows each side it now, and you’d never see that if you didn’t know ’twas there.” As he spoke he inserted a rusty key, which turned with surprising readiness, and gave the door a push. It opened immediately and with such ease that if Wilson had not grabbed him by the coat-collar he would have fallen into the river. “Whew-w!” said Wason. “That was a narrow shave. Thank you, sir. But the last time I opened it, it was as stiff as----”

“It’s been oiled since then,” said Wilson. “Feel those hinges. That suggests somebody has found a use for it quite recently. Well, at any rate we’ve got a bit of light on the situation.” He turned to survey the floor of the loft, on which the flood of light from the open door threw the footprints into strong relief. “See the mark where they dragged the trunk across the floor, Michael? But I think our principal concern is with the door.”

He crossed to its narrow sill, and stood looking out. Just above his head projected the stout beams of the little gable, and immediately below, breaking the sheer drop to the water, was the coping of Mr. Meston’s window. “Supposing,” he said, “a man were leaning out of that window, and supposing some one standing here dropped a noose over his head, and began to haul on it----”

The Colonel gave a shudder, but Wason remained sceptical. “They wouldn’t ’a’ got him up,” he said stolidly. “He’d be too heavy to pull out o’ window. Ain’t no leverage here.”

“But you said they used to pull up sacks here--heavy sacks,” Michael objected.

“Oh, aye, sacks. But sacks weren’t stuck in a window. Besides, they’d a crane in the gable. But my father--he took it down. It was only a big pulley, properly speaking, and he was afraid it’d get rotten and do some one a mischief falling on the barges.”

“The pulley may have gone,” Wilson said, leaning precariously out over space, while Michael moved to his side and held on to his coat-tails; “but something’s been in that gable not so long since. I can see screw-holes--new ones. Keep a hold, Michael. I’m going farther out. Wait a minute.” He swung back to safety, and drew a two-foot rule from his pocket. “Now.” He leant out as far as he dared, and with the rule in one hand and the other gripping the gable, began making measurements along the wood. Then he closed the rule and dropped it back into the loft. “Got a knife, somebody?” he asked. Wason opened his pocket-knife and handed it across. “No good,” said Wilson, after a minute’s scratching on the woodwork. “It’ll fall down. Fish in my trouser-pocket, Michael--no, the other one--and you’ll find my knife. If you open it, there’s a little pair of pincers in the head.... Good.” He leaned out still farther, and with a jerk of the pincers removed something from the woodwork, and placed it in his mouth for safety. “All serene. Coming in,” he said; and with Michael’s aid swung back into the loft.

Still standing on the sill, he drew from his mouth a strong screw, and exhibited it in the palm of his hand. “That’s what we call a ‘clue,’ Mr. Wason,” he said. “Now, have you got a wheelwright in the town, or any one who does odd wood-turning jobs?”

“Goodyear, in Strangers’ Alley, up along High Street, does most of that kind,” Wason said. “There’s one or two others does odd jobs; but Goodyear, he’s known.”

“Well, then, Colonel, I wonder if you or one of your men could do a job for me. I want to know if Goodyear at any time during the last month made or fitted up a pulley and pulley-blocks for this gable. Of course he won’t have known that it was for the gable; but here are the dimensions of the pulley”--he had torn a sheet from his pocket-book and began scribbling busily while he talked--“and this is a rough diagram of where the screw-holes were. The timber was three-quarters of an inch exactly, grooved for a slender rope, and this is one of the screws that were used. You can take it as a pattern. If Goodyear hasn’t made anything of the sort, try all the other people you can think of until you find out who has. Only it’s got to be done as quickly as possible, or our friends, whoever they are, will get to know about it, and decamp. Do you mind?”

“I’ll go myself,” said the Colonel, taking the sketch. He bustled off, looking very important. “Mind the footprints!” Wilson called after him.

“While’s he’s gone,” Wilson said, “we’d better examine this place as carefully as we can. There may be other traces. Have either of you men got flashlamps? Good. Then you go off into the dark end, and examine that thoroughly. But for goodness’ sake don’t disturb any of the traces we’ve already got. Linton, will you be measuring and drawing the footprints very carefully. I think you’ll find there are three sets, apart from some smudges; but I can’t be sure till they’re measured. Make a plan of how they lie, too--all those you can distinguish. There’s a bit of confirmatory evidence here, Michael, for what it’s worth,” he went on, looking out of the door again. “See those marks in the stucco just below? They’re fresh scratches; and they were made, I suppose, by the trunk as it went down, or by his feet as he came up--probably the latter.”

“Ugh!” said Michael, retreating. He did not like sheer drops at the best of times, still less drops where men had been hanged.

“There’s some cigarette-ends here, sir,” one of the constables said. “Nothing else that I can see.”

“Pick ’em up,” said Wilson. “I don’t suppose they’ll tell us much, but we’d better have all we can get. Look out, Michael, there’s something shining by your foot. Hullo! This is an odd thing to find in a loft.” In his hand lay a tiny, but blazing emerald. “Come out of anything of yours, Wason?”

“No, sir, nor of the missus’s,” the landlord said, with emphasis. He was staring at the brilliant little jewel as if it troubled him.

“Know whose it is?”

“Couldn’t say, sir.”

“Well, if you do, or if you find out, you’ll know pretty well who the murderer is,” Wilson said. “How are you fellows getting on?”

“Nearly done, sir,” one of the constables replied. “There’s a lot of junk here in this corner, that’s a bit awkward to get round. Something’s fallen down, I think, just lately, by the dust. Yes, it’s this box. Lend a hand, Freddy, and we’ll have it up. Holy snakes!”

“What’s the matter?” Without speaking, the man held up a long coil of fine silk rope.

“Well,” said Wilson, “what of it? The man was hanged, wasn’t he? That almost presupposes a rope.”

“But they found the rope, sir, by the boathouse.”

“No, they didn’t,” said Wilson. “_This_ is the rope.”

“Then what’s the other?”

“The other? Oh, a plant, of course. That’s what I suspected. But why on earth were they such fools as to leave this one here? I suppose they lost it, tipped the box over on it, couldn’t find it in the dark, and didn’t dare to stay looking for it too long. It was all odds against it ever being found.”

“Particularly,” said Michael, “if the body had stayed at the bottom of the river.”

“Yes. Well, I think that’s about all we shall find up here. Suppose we get down. When you’ve finished, Linton, bring those drawings to me, and then put a guard at the bottom of the stair. What’s this?”

“A chestnut on a string,” said Michael, picking it up. “Not much good to us, is it? They’re hardly likely to have been playing conkers here.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Wilson. “They may have been. Bring it along, anyway.”

He led the way out of the loft, followed by Prendergast and the landlord. When they reached the landing Wason plucked at his sleeve. “If you please, sir, could I have a word with you?”

“Right.” Wilson turned in at the doorway of Meston’s room. “What is it?”

“That emerald, sir, you picked up in the loft--I didn’t like to say much, not with all those chaps about; but I’ve a feeling I know whose it is.”

“Well?”

“Mr. John’s, sir,” said Wason.

“Oh!” Wilson seemed more than a little surprised. “John Loring’s? Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure, sir,” the landlord admitted unwillingly. “Mr. John, when he was about these parts, he always had an emerald tie-pin, with a great big stone in the centre and a lot of little ’uns all round. And my girl, she saw him when he drove back with the police, and she noticed particular he was wearing his emerald pin.” Wason looked very distressed.

John Loring’s! And in the loft, where certainly John Loring had no reason to be. Little as he liked Sylvia Meston, Michael was almost indignant with Wilson for raising her hopes so recently. But Wilson did not appear moved.

“Well, we shall see what we shall see,” he said. “Hullo, Colonel, any luck?”