The Guest House lay on the southern fringe of the park, in the clearing of a coppice which gave it a deserted, mournful, and rather ominous appearance. It was in a hollow of somewhat marshy ground, with a great ilex tree growing behind it, so that it seemed much smaller than it was. If The Grange itself was of plain design, some domestic architect seemed to have spread himself to make this place an unholy mongrel from all styles of building, and to give it as many geegaws as a super-mighty pipe organ in a super-mighty cinema theatre. It looked as though you could play it. Upon a squat stone house rose scrolls, tablets, stops, and fretwork. Every window — including those of the cellar — was protected by a pot-bellied grille in the French fashion. It was encircled by an upper and lower balcony, with fancy iron railings. Midway along the upper balcony Donovan could see on the west side of the square the door by which the murderer must have escaped. It still stood ajar, and a flight of stairs near it led down to the lower balcony. The very bad taste of the house had a sinister look. Despite the sunlight, it was gloomy in the coppice, and the stickiness of last night's rain had not disappeared.
The bishop was leading them up a brick walk, which divided at the house and encircled it, when he stopped suddenly. At the side of the walk that ran round the west end, they could see the figure of a man kneeling and staring at something on the ground.
The bishop almost said, "Aha!" He strode forward. The kneeling figure raised its head with a jerk.
"But they're my shoes!" it protested. "Look here, confound it. They're my shoes!"
CHAPTER V
Somebody's Footprint
"Good afternoon, Morley," said the bishop imperturbably. "Gentlemen, allow me to present Morley Standish, Colonel Standish's son… What's this about your shoes?"
Morley Standish got up, brushing the knees of his trousers. He was earnest, stocky, and thirty-five; a younger, somewhat more intelligent-looking edition of his father. You could see how he had been molded by that association. He had a heavy, not-unhandsome, face, and one of those moustaches recently associated with serious purpose by Herr Hider. Though he wore a loose sport coat, it was of sombre color, and a black tie apparendy from some vague idea of doing the correct thing by the late father of his fiancée. You could almost take it as a symbol of him: correct, O.T.C., hesitantly religious; yet wanting to unbend, and with a streak of impetuousness allied with humor.
"I seem to have blurted out something," he said, after a pause. Donovan could not tell whether it was anger or humor in his eyes. He looked from one to the other of them. "Ever have that experience? Someone startles you by coming on you unexpectedly, and you crack out with the thing that's in your mind?''
The half-smile faded off his face.
"Murch told me, sir, that you and my father knew all about this business. It's pretty bad. I've wired Betty the news, before she should see it in a paper. And I’ll attend to all the arrangements. But Murch said you'd probably call in Scotland Yard, and we mustn't touch the body until then. If these gentlemen" — he looked at Donovan and Dr. Fell—"are from the Yard, I hope they'll make a quick examination and let the undertaker carry on."
The bishop nodded. He clearly thought very highly of the practical Morley Standish. This," he said, "is Dr. Fell, whom my — hum — my good friend the chief inspector sent down to assist us. Our investigation should make excellent headway with him… "
He nodded with some stiffness towards the doctor, who blinked amiably upon Standish. "And this is my son, Hugh, of whom you have heard me speak. You are in charge, doctor. Shall we go into the house? You will find Mr. Standish an admirable person to tell us the facts."
"Quite," said Dr. Fell. He jerked a thumb towards the house. "This valet fellow — is he there now?"
Standish had been looking at him with a correct concealment of surprise which thus made itself evident. He had clearly expected Donovan to be a young police official of some description, and he was jarred a little to see Dr. Fell was the man in charge.
"Yes," he said. "Would you care to go in? The cook,
Achille, refused to stay. He says there are ghosts in the house. But Storer will stay as long as he is needed."
"No hurry" said Dr. Fell easily. He indicated the few steps which led up to the side entrance of the veranda. "Sit down, Mr. Standish. Make yourself comfortable. Smoke?"
"Surely," observed the bishop, "if we went inside—"
"Rubbish," said Dr. Fell. He settled matters by lowering himself with some difficult on an ornamental bench opposite. Morley Standish, with an expression of great gravity, sat down on the steps and produced a pipe. For a time Dr. Fell was silent, poking at the brick wall with his stick, and wheezing with the labor of having sat down. Then he said with an off-hand air:
"Who do you think killed Depping, Mr. Standish?"
At this unorthodox beginning the bishop folded his arms and looked resigned. It was curiously as though Dr. Fell were on trial, sitting there big and abstracted, with the birds bickering in the trees behind him. Morley Standish looked at him with slightly closed eyes.
"Why," he said, "I don't suppose there's much doubt of that, is there? The chap who came to visit him — the one with the American accent—?" He frowned inquiringly.
"Spinelli," put in the bishop complacently.
"For God's sake," said Dr. Fell, turning to glare, "shut up, will you? I happen to be in charge here."
Morley Standish jumped. There was a puzzled and somewhat shocked expression on his face. But he answered bitterly:
"You know his name, do you? Well, that reminds me. Bishop Donovan was right. If we'd had the sense to listen to him when he first told us about the fellow,' this mightn't have happened. With all my, father's good points—" He hesitated. "Never mind. We could have prevented it."
"I wonder," said Dr. Fell. "What traces of him have you found today? I gather Spinelli hasn't been tracked down?"
"Not so far as I know. But I haven't seen Murch since noon."
"H'mf. Now, Mr. Standish, if Spinelli killed your prospective father-in-law, why do you suppose he did it? What connection was there between a studious, harmless old gentleman like Depping, and an American blackmailer with a police record?"
Standish got his pipe lighted, and twitched the match away before he answered. His heavy face had grown more stolid. "I say, Mr. — what was it — oh — Dr. Fell, why ask me? I don't know any more than — well, my father, say. Why ask me?"
"Did you and Miss Depping ever discuss him, for instance?"
"Ah," said Standish. He looked straight at the doctor. "That's rather a personal question, you know. Still, it's easily answered. Betty — Miss Depping — scarcely knew her father at all. And she doesn't remember her mother. From the age of seven or eight she was in a convent at Trieste. Then she was put in one of those super-strict French boarding schools. When she was eighteen she — well, hang it, she's got spirit, and she couldn't stand it; so she broke out and ran away… " First Morley Standish's correct face looked somewhat embarrassed, and then he grinned. "Ran away, by Jove! Damned good, eh?" he demanded, and brushed at his Hitler moustache, and slapped his leg. "Then the old ba — Mr. Depping permitted her to live with a hired companion (one of those courtesy aunts) in Paris. All this time she only saw him at long intervals. But she wrote to him at some address in London. About five years ago, when she was twenty, he suddenly turned up and said he'd retired from business. The funny part of it was that though he was always worrying about her, and what mischief she might be up to, he never asked her to live with him—" In full flight Standish checked himself. "I say, you needn't repeat all this, need you? That is, I know more about it than my father, I admit, but…"