“There are bloodstains on the stairs,” said Carver,
“and on the garden path outside. There is also the mark
of car wheels which have evidently been backed from
the lane where Lander usually kept his car, but beyond
that, all trace is lost.”
He looked at Tab and Tab looked at him.
“What do you think?” asked Tab quietly.
“I am not putting my thoughts into words,” said the
Inspector, “and I tell you honestly, Tab, that I’d rather
have that confession of Lander’s—wild and incoherent
as it is—than I’d have Lander himself.”
Dawn was breaking, and Ursula had come down to
make them coffee, a silent but absorbed listener.
“It is perfectly certain that Lander came here,” said
Carver. “He destroyed the telephone connection, he
made an entrance by the window in the sitting-room, and
he went upstairs. You heard nothing, Miss Ardfern?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head. “I am not a very
light sleeper, but I am sure if there had been any kind
of struggle outside my door, I should have heard.”
“It all depends on who controlled the struggle,” said
Carver drily. “My own belief is—however, that is
nothing to do with the matter. There is the fact that
Lander’s hat was found in the roadway, Lander came
here, his car marks are distinguishable, and that Lander
himself has gone. Turner heard nothing?”
“Nothing,” she said. “That isn’t remarkable; he
sleeps at the back of the house, in a room opening from
the kitchen. Does the confession tell you much?”
“A whole lot,” said Carver emphatically, “and with
Tab’s explanation as to how the key was put back on the
table, the thing is as clear as daylight. It seems that
Lander has for years been planning to get his uncle’s
money, and his scheme was hurried when he learnt—probably
from the old man’s lips when he was staying
with him—that Trasmere intended leaving his money
away from the family. Whilst Rex Lander was a guest
at Mayfield, he must have taken the revolver which was
undoubtedly Trasmere’s property, and I have an idea
that he took something else.”
“I can tell you what it was,” said Ursula quietly. “He
took away with him some Mayfield notepaper.”
Tab looked at her in astonishment.
“Why should he do that, Ursula?”
She did not answer him at once, because here Carver
interposed a question.
“How long have you known, Miss Ardfern, that
Lander was the murderer of Jesse Trasmere?”
Tab expected her to say that she did not know it at
all, and that the news had come in the nature of a shock.
Instead:
“I knew he was the murderer the day that Tab told
me about the will Mr. Trasmere had left.”
“But why?” asked Tab.
“Because,” said Ursula, “Mr. Trasmere could not read
or write English!”
The full significance of the simple statement came
more quickly to Carver than to Tab.
“I see. I’ve known the will was a fake all the time,”
he said, “but I thought it was just a forgery, and that
Lander had imitated the writing of the letters that used
to come for him from the old man.”
“They never came from the old man, Mr. Lander
wrote them himself,” said the girl. “I rather think he
wrote them with the intention of establishing the authenticity
of the signature when the will was discovered. He
had guessed the old gentleman’s secret. Mr. Trasmere
was very sensitive on the point. He used to complain
that although he could write and read Chinese without
any difficulty—in fact, I have learnt since that he was
scholarly in that direction—he could not write two words
of English. That is the principal explanation as to why
he employed me for his secretary, and why he must have
somebody upon whom he could place the utmost reliance,
and on whom he had some sort of pull.”
“Do you mean to tell me that Rex was writing letters
to himself?” asked Tab incredulously.
She nodded.
“There is no doubt at all,” she said. “When you told
me Mr. Trasmere had left a will in his own handwriting,
I nearly fainted. I knew then just what had happened,
who was the murderer and why Mr. Trasmere
had been murdered.”
Carver rubbed his unshaven chin.
“I wish I could find Lander,” he said half to himself.
“How long did Rex have this idea?”
Tab broke the silence which followed.
“For years, ever since—” he hesitated.
“Ever since he first saw me?” said the girl miserably.
“Before then. There was another lady upon whom he
set his heart,” replied Carver. “Lander, as I say, had
to hurry up his scheme when he found that the money
was going to be left away. He was only waiting his
opportunity. The plan had been completed to the smallest
detail. He had practiced with the key trick assiduously,
and he decided to put the plan into operation on
the day the murder was committed. He knew that his
uncle generally spent his Saturday afternoons in the
vault, that the doors leading to the vault would be open.
His first job was to get rid of the servant. By some
means he discovered that Walters was a crook: I have
an idea that there was a time when Lander was an industrious
student of crime, and I seem to remember somebody
telling me that he used to spend hours at the ‘Megaphone’
library and made himself very unpopular in
consequence.”
Tab nodded.
“That is where he might have become acquainted with
Walters, or Felling, though I am not going to dogmatise
on the subject. It is sufficient that he found that Walters
was a convicted thief, and that on the afternoon of the
murder he sent a telegram (which I have been able to
trace) to Walters, telling him the police were coming
for him at three. From the moment he saw that telegram
delivered, and he must have been watching, to the moment
that Walters left the house, Lander was somewhere
handy. As soon as he saw the door opened, and Walters
came out, he made his appearance. When Walters
had gone, he went into the house, passed down the steps
into the passage, and found, as he had expected, his uncle
working at the table, probably checking some money
that had come in during the week—a favourite occupation
of his. Without warning he shot the old man dead.
Then, looking round for the key, he found that it was
not, as he had expected, in the lock, but on the chain
about Trasmere’s neck. He broke the chain and took out
the key, which was blood-stained. He had a pin and
thread ready which he fastened to the centre of the
table, put the other end through the keyhole after threading
the key, pulled the door to, locked it, and drew on
the slack in exactly the same way as you saw and described,
Tab.
“I noticed one little blood-stain near the bottom of the
door when I first inspected the cell, but could not make
head or tail of it. Nor could I understand the appearance
of a tiny piece of grit in the ward of the key. Both
these mysteries have been solved. When the key was
back on the table, he pulled out the pin, removed it from
the cotton, which he put back in his pocket, and by some
mischance, dropped the pin in the passage-way.”
There was another long pause, and then:
“Where is he now?” asked Carver irritably.
The only man who could have supplied him with exact
information was at that moment sleeping peacefully on
a hard and narrow bed.
