Chapter ELEVEN: Four-Eyed Scottie

“Who was the woman in Mr. Merrivan’s room? The butler of the deceased man heard a woman’s voice distinctly. Mr. Merrivan had received no visitors that evening. The butler had admitted nobody, and yet, coming downstairs half an hour after Mr. Merrivan had told him to go to bed, he heard the sound of voices, and one of those voices was a woman’s. Who was this mysterious visitor? In all probability she can throw a light upon a double crime, which in its sensational features has no parallel in recent years.”

* * * * *

Andy read the newspaper leader calmly. There were others very similarly worded. The reporters had got to the butler. That was inevitable. He couldn’t keep the man locked up, and apparently the warning he had delivered had had no effect.

The first reporter he saw the next morning brought the incident of the woman forward as being of supreme importance.

“Possibly,” said Andy, “she might tell us something, but obviously she could not throw any light on the murder. She was seen leaving the house at eleven o’clock. The murder was not committed until past one.”

“Who saw her leave?”

“Ah ha!” said Andy, smiling, “that is my own pet mystery. Seriously, I shouldn’t bank on the woman. She may have been a neighbour who very naturally is horrified at the thought of publicity.”

To the second reporter he was more explicit.

“Curiously enough, it was I who saw her. I was sitting at the open window. It was a warm, beautiful night, and almost as clear as though the moon was shining. I saw her crossing the green; she passed under my window and out on the main road.”

Andrew Macleod was a problem to Andrew Macleod. He was working for two ends—to keep the girl out of the case; to bring to justice the murderer. The facility with which he lied amazed him. Ordinarily scrupulous to a degree, so that even to gain a conviction when the guilt of a prisoner was known to him he would never stretch supposition into fact; yet he was now lying glibly, shamelessly.

At the announcement of every new reporter he expected to see the hard features of one man who would be more difficult than any other. Happily, a certain Mr. Downer did not put in an appearance. He asked one of the other reporters:

“I should have thought that this was a case for Downer?”

The journalist made a wry face.

“Downer is away on his holidays. I’m very glad. I hate working with him.”

Andy smiled to himself. He shared the other’s relief. He had replied to the wire he had received from headquarters placing him in charge and asking if he required any help. There was a big end of the case in town, and he left that to the town men, expressing himself as satisfied with the assistance that was at hand. His unofficial and most unexpected helper arrived at about eleven, when he had seen the last of the reporters.

A thin, long man, wearing loose knickerbockers and golfing shoes, arrived at the guest house, and the manager’s jaw dropped at the sight of him.

“Good morning, Johnston,” said the newcomer cheerfully. “Is Macleod about?”

“Mr. Macleod is in his sitting-room,” said the manager slowly. “It is rather surprising to see you, professor.”

“Four-eyed Scottie” took off his gold-mounted spectacles and polished them with a purple silk handkerchief.

“It was a mistake, a foolish police error. I do not resent it. After all, Johnston, we must remember that in every highly efficient police system such mistakes must occur. Never blame the police, whatever inconvenience you may be put to. It is better that a dozen innocent citizens shall be arrested than one miscreant should escape.”

“Yes, sir,” said the dazed Johnston, falling naturally into the attitude of deference which he had shown to the former guest. “Did you want to see Mr. Macleod?” He hesitated. “What name shall I give?”

“Bellingham, Professor Bellingham,” said Scottie, and added, “My own name.”

A minute later:

“Professor who?” said Andy.

“Bellingham, sir, the gentleman who was staying here before.”

“The devil!” said Andy. “Show him up.”

Scottie strolled into the room, dismissed Mr. Johnston with a nod, and closed the door.

“To what miracle am I indebted for this visit, Scottie?”

“The miracle of justice,” said Scottie as he sat down uninvited. “_Fiat justicia_, etc. I bear no ill-feeling, Macleod.”

Andy chuckled.

“So your alibi got past, did it?”

Scottie nodded solemnly.

“The beak said that he could not commit me, and that it was evidently a case of mistaken identity. Such things have happened before and will happen again, Macleod. To be absolutely honest, I was playing solo whist with Mr. Felix Lawson, a well-known licensed victualler——”

“And a receiver of stolen goods,” added Andy pointedly. “There is a conviction against him on that score unless I am mistaken.”

“Don’t let us rake up old scandals,” said Scottie; “the point is that here I am, and at your service.”

Andy swung round to face his visitor.

“What name did you give Johnston?”

“Bellingham, Professor Bellingham. It is a _nom de guerre_. After all, what is a professor? One who professes. I profess to understand geology, from Leibnitz to Hutton. The palæozoic rock, with which I include the Devonian system, is my long suit, and——”

“We won’t quarrel over the question of your erudition,” said Andy good-temperedly. “The point is, why have you come here? Having escaped the just processes of the law—I suspect perjury on an extensive scale——”

Scottie drew up his chair nearer.

“I told you something about this place,” he said sombrely. “I told you there was trouble coming, and it has come.”

Andy nodded. He had remembered Scottie’s warning a good many times since the murder.

“Now I’ll unfurl another fold of information,” said Scottie. “Under the rose, over the stone, and on the square”—he shifted his feet symbolically—“we’re talking as brothers.”

“Do you know anything about it?” asked Andy.

“I don’t know; I’m only guessing. I took to this place partly because it was off the main road, and partly because it looked pretty good to me, with all those rich people hanging round with silver and gold for the taking. That Sheppard woman wears pearls like eggs. Her husband is a municipal architect, and naturally a grafter. But that is by the way. I tell you, there are pickings in this place for a—a scientist. Naturally I have reconnoitred the village from the club house to the Sheppard’s garage. The only house in the village that wouldn’t show a profit on a night’s work is the Nelsons, but probably you know that as well as I do. Not that it doesn’t hold a treasure——”

“Get on with your speculations,” said Andy shortly, and was sorry, for Scottie shot a quick, enquiring glance at him. Nevertheless, he made no further reference either to the Nelsons’ house or to the treasure it contained.

“I’ve been all over Merrivan’s grounds, and he is the only man who has taken adequate precautions to deal with robbers and thieves. There is a burglar alarm on every window except the back window of his study, and that has a patent bolt at the edge and can’t be forced from the outside. He’s got a gun, which he keeps in a little cupboard behind his desk. The door looks like one of the panels of the wall, but it isn’t.”

“That is one I missed,” said Andy, interested. “How does it open?”

Scottie shook his head.

“I’ve never been inside, but I’ve seen it. And I’ll tell you another one, Macleod; the back window hasn’t a burglar alarm, because that’s the way old Merrivan used to go out at nights. Under the window outside there is a broad stone seat. You saw that?”

“Where did he go?”

“I don’t know; I only saw him once; but he stepped out so pert and lively that I knew he must have gone that way before—through the orchard to God knows where. I never followed him; it would have been indelicate. Fat men are entitled to their adventures as much as we thin men.”

“When did you see him go out by the window?”

“The night before you fixed me,” said Scottie. “The time was about eleven-thirty. I didn’t see him come back, but I did observe the man who followed him. Not distinctly in the sense that I could tell you who he was, or pick him out from twenty other men. That is why I didn’t follow. I guessed that Merrivan had his own trouble coming to him, and although, due to the miscarriage of justice, I have certainly appeared in law courts, I have never descended to taking the stand in a divorce case. Have I interested you?”

“You have indeed, Scottie. I suppose you’ve some idea of the height of the man?”

“He is a little man, rather about your size,” said Scottie, with the insolence of six feet.

“About fifty-nine inches?”

“That’s it,” nodded Scottie, and corrected himself. “No, I wouldn’t say he was even as big as that. Honestly, he was a little fellow. I should say he didn’t come up to your shoulder. But it is very difficult to judge, even in the moonlight. I spotted this fellow before Merrivan came out. The trunks of the trees in the orchard are lime-washed, and I saw him pass a trunk, and that scared me a bit. I took an entirely selfish view; my first thought was for my own safety, so I didn’t go along and investigate. And then Merrivan came out and walked off as I told you. He had disappeared before this fellow who was watching in the orchard made any move, and then I saw him just for a second in the moonlight. The impression I had was that this wasn’t the first time he had been watching, and maybe he had good reason.”

“What you say puts rather a new complexion upon the case,” said Andy thoughtfully. “To tell you the truth, Scottie, I was anxious to find that new complexion. It gives us a line. You’ve heard no scandal?”

Scottie shook his head.

“I never listen to such things,” he said virtuously. “But I certainly did look hard at all the women up at the golf house the next morning, without finding one of the married ladies who would inspire a man of taste and discrimination.”

Andy thought for a while.

“I don’t exactly know what I am going to do with you, Scottie, or how I am going to explain you. I think you would be very helpful, but naturally you can’t go back to your old rôle of social pet.”

“I was never exactly that,” said Scottie unabashed. “I had the glamour with which science envelops her votaries.”

Andy laughed.

“Anyway, I’m glad to see you, Scottie, and almost glad, though it is an immoral thing to say, that you’ve got away with it. Now what am I to do with you? I wonder if the Nelsons would harbour you? I’m not certain about Mr. Nelson.”

He implied that he was very certain of the girl, and Scottie gathered that at least he had got acquainted.

“Just wait here whilst I run over,” he said. “Don’t read my correspondence if you can avoid it.”

Here his guest was genuinely ruffled, but Andy laughed him down.

Stella, rioting in the sense of luxury which two capable servants brought to her, was working in the garden when Andy came through the gate, and she stripped off her gloves and offered her hand.

“Stella, I want you to help me. There’s an old friend of mine arrived, and I cannot exactly keep him in the guest house, and I really want his assistance.”

“But why not the guest house?” she asked in surprise. “Father could sponsor him.”

“It is Scottie,” he explained. “You remember Four-eyed Scottie?”

“The professor?” she said in surprise. “I thought he was in prison.”

“There has been a miscarriage of justice,” said Andy calmly, “and he’s got off. Could you put him up? I know that it is an extraordinary thing to ask, for Scottie is undoubtedly a crook. But I promise you that he won’t disgrace you or steal your silver. At the same time it will be necessary to offer a plausible explanation to your father.”

She wrinkled her forehead in thought.

“If father ever really thought it was a miscarriage of justice—I mean his being arrested at all—and that the professor was in consequence a little sensitive——”

“That’s it,” said Andy, and went into the house to interview Mr. Kenneth Nelson.

He found him in the studio paying marked attention to Pygmalion’s left eye, and Mr Nelson listened with interest to the story of Scottie’s return.

“Naturally I quite understand,” he said. “The poor chap will not want to meet all these people again, and if, as you say, he wants to complete his study of the Beverley strata—Beverley, by the way, has the distinction of possessing a strata of its own—I’ll accommodate him with pleasure, though I have never heard of people geologising by night.”

“The professor is a remarkable man,” said Andy gravely.