“am i the first man to whom you have told this story?” asked crewe, in a gentle voice.
“yes,” said marsland. “it is not a story that i would care to tell to many. it is not a story that reflects any credit on me—my company wiped out through treachery on the part of two of my men.”
“but when you came back to england, wouldn’t it have been better to have reported the matter to the military authorities and have had brett and lumsden tried by court martial?”
“i did not know they were in england until i came down here: i thought that if they were not dead they were prisoners in germany. i have no witnesses for a court martial, and after being off my head in the hospital for a couple of months i doubt if a court martial would believe my story. counsel for the defence would say i was suffering from delusions. and it would have driven me mad if such a scoundrel as brett had been acquitted by a court martial for want of evidence. besides, the satisfaction of having him shot was not to be compared with the satisfaction of shooting him down myself just as if he were a dog.”
“but it is a terribly grave thing to take human life—to send a man to his death without trial.”
“i have seen so many men die, crewe, that death seems to me but a little thing. if a man deserves death, if he knows himself that he deserves it a hundredfold, why waste time in proving it to others? if i had shot brett i should doubtless have had to stand my trial for murder. but if the police searched all over england could they have found a jury who would convict me if i saw fit to tell my story in the dock? told by a man in the dock it would carry conviction; but told by a man in the witness-box at a court martial it might not.”
“i believe there is some truth in that,” said crewe, in a firm, quiet voice. “but it is a matter which must be put to the test.”
marsland stood up and fixed on him an intent gaze.
“what do you mean?” he said. “if brett is dead he died by accident—by a fall over the cliff. the law cannot touch me.”
the detective did not speak, but his eyes held the young man’s glance intently for a moment, and then traveled slowly to the portrait of frank lumsden on the wall.
“i mean that,” he said slowly.
“do you know all?” marsland asked, in a voice which was little more than a whisper.
“i know that it was you who shot frank lumsden.”
“yes, i shot him!” the young man sprang to his feet and uttered the words in a loud, excited tone which rang through the empty house. “and so little do i regret what i have done, that if i had the chance to recall the past i would not falter—i would shoot him again.”
“sit down again,” said crewe kindly. “do not excite yourself. you and i can discuss this thing quietly whatever else is to happen afterwards.”
“how long have you known that i did it?” asked marsland, after a pause.
“it was not until yesterday that i felt quite certain. what annoys me—what offends my personal pride—is that my impetuous young friend gillett picked you out as the right man before i did. he was wrong in his facts, wrong in his deductions, wrong in his theories, and hopelessly wrong in his reconstruction of the crime. he had no more chance of proving a case against you than against the first man he might pick out blindfolded from a crowd, and yet he was right. true, he came to the conclusion that he was wrong when i put him right as to the circumstances under which the tragedy occurred, but that doesn’t soothe my pride altogether. if there is one lesson i have learned from this case, it is that humility is a virtue that becomes us all.
“but, after all, i do not think i have been so very long in solving the problem,” the detective continued. “it is only thirteen days since the tragedy took place, and from the first i saw it was a complicated case. i never ruled out the possibility of your being the right man after brett and miss maynard tried to sheet home lumsden’s death to you. i do not think she was fully in brett’s confidence—in fact, it is fairly obvious that he would not tell her the story of his treachery. but he knew that you had shot lumsden and she caught at his conviction without being fully convinced herself. brett’s conduct was inconsistent with guilt. but it was consistent with the knowledge that lumsden had met his death at your hands and that he himself would share the same fate if you encountered him.
“i am under the impression that he reached lumsden a few minutes after you rode away from the spot, and that lumsden was then alive. probably he was able to breathe out your name to brett. the latter helped the dying man into the motor-car and started to drive back to staveley for medical aid, and after passing the thatched cottage on the right he became aware that lumsden had collapsed and was past human aid. so he decided to take the body to the farm, and in order to disappear, without drawing immediate suspicion on himself, he tried to indicate that lumsden was shot in the house.
“then he disappeared because he was afraid of you. if he had got you under lock and key he might have risked coming into the open and giving evidence against you. but i rather fancy that his intention was to get away to a foreign country with old lumsden’s money, and then put the police on your track by giving the true circumstances under which lumsden was shot.”
“did he write to you?” asked marsland.
“no.”
“i was always afraid he would. what put you on my track?”
“the conviction that you had warned this girl to clear out as gillett had obtained some awkward facts against her. you were the only person who had any object in warning her, though gillett thinks you had even less reason to do so than brett. i regarded you merely as an average human being and not actuated by quixotic impulses. i remembered that she had tried to sheet home the crime to you and therefore you had little cause to be grateful to her—so far i am in accord with gillett. but if you knew that she had nothing to do with the tragedy, and if you felt that gillett’s close questioning might lead to information from brett which would tell against you, it was common sense on your part to get her out of the way.”
“it is wonderful how you have divined my mind and the line of thought i followed,” said the young man. his even tones were an indication that he was regaining his composure.
“next, there was your attempt to kill brett instead of helping me to capture him. that told against you. true, it indicated that you had what you regarded as a just cause of deadly hatred. but if you were under the belief that brett had killed lumsden it would have suited you better to capture him than to shoot him. your shot at brett showed me that you knew it was not brett who had killed lumsden, and also that you feared if brett were arrested he would charge you with shooting lumsden.”
“go on,” said the young man breathlessly.
“there is little more to tell,” said crewe. “i had to ask gillett yesterday not to refer to the doubts i had expressed to him regarding brett’s guilt. i was afraid he might do so in your presence and that would have put you on your guard. the final proof came when gillett discovered the bullet in the tree where lumsden fell. at the moment gillett found the bullet i picked up these in the grass.”
crewe produced from his waistcoat pocket a pair of eye-glasses.
“so that is where i lost them!” exclaimed marsland. “it never occurred to me before. i have no recollection of their dropping off—i suppose i was too excited to notice they had gone.”
“your meeting with him was accidental?” said crewe.
“quite. i had been out riding on the downs and when i struck the road i wasn’t sure which way i had to go to get home. i saw a man coming along the road and i rode up to him. it was lumsden. i tell you, crewe, he was terrified at the sight of me—no doubt he thought that i had been killed in france. as i was dismounting and tying up my horse he pleaded for his life. he grovelled at my feet in the dirt. but i didn’t waste much time or pity. i told him that he had earned death a hundredfold, and that the only thing i was sorry for was that i could kill him only once. he sprang up the bank in the hope of getting away, but i brought him down with a single shot. i saw that he was done for and i left him gasping in the agony of death. i had no pity—i had seen so many men die, and i had seen my company of good men go to their deaths because of his treachery.
“i rode back over the downs, and caring little which way i went i lost my way and was overtaken by the storm. eventually i saw the farm and went there for shelter. and upstairs i found the dead body of this man lumsden. it was the strangest experience of my life. i did not know what to think—i could not make out how the body had got there. and when miss maynard asked me to say nothing to the police about her having been there i thought it was the least i could do for her. i knew that whatever errand had brought her there she had nothing to do with his death.”
there was a long pause during which the two men looked at one another.
“you think that i had just cause for shooting him?” said marsland.
“i think you had no right to take upon yourself the responsibility of saying ‘the law will fail to punish these men and therefore i will punish them without invoking the aid of the law!’”
“i do not regret what i have done. as i said before, if i had to go through it again i would not hesitate to shoot him. perhaps it is because i have lived so much with death while i was at the front that human life does not seem to me a sacred thing. these two men deserved death if ever men did.”
“you believe that no jury would convict you?” said crewe.
“i do not see how a jury of patriotic englishmen could do so. but i do not care about that. i have finished with my life; i do not care what becomes of me. when i recall what i have been through over there in france, when i think of the thousands of brave men who have died agonized deaths, when i see again the shattered mutilated bodies of my men in the shell-hole with me—i want to forget that i have ever lived. all that remains to be done is that you should hand me over to the police.”
“that is a responsibility which i should like to be spared,” said crewe gravely. “i think we may leave it to brett.”
“to brett!” exclaimed marsland, springing to his feet again in renewed excitement. “do you think he has escaped death; do you think he has got away?”
“i feel sure he was killed. but if his body is recovered the police will learn from it that it was you who shot lumsden.”
“how will they find that out?”
“the girl maynard has told them that he had an important paper in his possession when he was drowned and that is why they are so anxious to recover the body. they do not know the contents of the document but it is an easy matter to divine them. let us look at this matter in the way in which brett must have looked at it after thinking it over carefully. he knew that you had shot lumsden; he knew that if he met you his life would not be worth a moment’s purchase. the shot you fired at him when he was breaking into your room at staveley was an emphatic warning on that point, if he needed any warning.
“do you think that he would not take steps to bring his death and lumsden’s death home to you in the event of his being shot down? if he had got out of the country, as no doubt he had hoped to do, he would have put the police on your track for shooting lumsden. if the police recover brett’s body, they will find on it a document setting forth brett’s account of how lumsden met his death. no doubt his and lumsden’s treachery will be glossed over, but your share in the tragedy will be plainly put.”
“i overlooked all this,” said marsland quietly. “let us walk across to the cliffs and see what they are doing.”
they left the farm and walked slowly towards the cliffs, each immersed in his own thoughts. there were a few groups of people on the road, and another group at the top of the hill. suddenly there arose a shout, and the people on the road started running towards the cliffs.
“they’ve found it!” the cry of the people on the beach below was carried up to the cliffs, and crewe and marsland, looking down, saw the fishermen in one of the boats close to the cliff lift from the water the dripping, stiffened figure of a man which had been brought to the surface by the grappling irons.
