He examined the edge with care.
“This seems to be the genuine article, Inspector. I can’t see any hole in the edge, which they told me was drilled to distinguish the replicas from the real thing. No, there’s no mark of any sort here.”
He handed it back to the Inspector, who examined it in his turn. Sir Clinton took it back when the Inspector had done with it, and placed it in his pocket.
“I think, Inspector, we’ll say nothing about this find for the present. I’ve an idea it may be a useful thing to have up our sleeve before we’ve done. By the way, do you still connect Foxton Polegate with this case?”
Armadale looked the Chief Constable in the eye as he replied.
“I’m more inclined to connect Cecil Chacewater with it, just now, sir. Look at the facts. It’s been common talk that there was ill-feeling between those two brothers. Servants talk; and other people repeat it. And the business that ended in the final row between the two of them was centred in these Leonardo medallions. That’s worth thinking over. Then, again, Cecil Chacewater disappeared for a short while. You couldn’t get in touch with him. And it was just at that time that queer things began to happen here at Ravensthorpe. Where was he then? It seems a bit suggestive, doesn’t it? And where was he last night? If you looked at him this morning, you couldn’t help seeing he’d spent a queer night, wherever he spent it. That was the night when this body was brought here from wherever the shooting was done. And when you asked Cecil Chacewater how he’d come home, he said he’d arrived by the first train this morning. That was a lie. He didn’t come by that train. He’d been here before that.”
To the Inspector’s amazement and disgust Sir Clinton laughed unaffectedly at this exposition.
“It’s nothing to laugh at, sir. You can’t deny these things. I don’t say they prove anything; but you can’t brush them aside merely by laughing at them. They’ve got to be explained. And until they’ve been explained in some satisfactory way things will look very fishy.”
Sir Clinton recovered his serious mask.
“Perhaps I laughed a little too soon, Inspector. I apologize. I’m not absolutely certain of my ground; I quite admit that. But I’ll just give you one hint. Sometimes one case looks as if it were two independent affairs. Sometimes two independent affairs get interlocked and look like one case. Now just think that over carefully. It’s perhaps got the germ of something in it, if you care to fish it out.”
“Half of what you’ve said already sounds like riddles to me, sir,” Armadale protested, fretfully. “I’m never sure when you’re serious and when you’re pulling my leg.”
Sir Clinton was saved from the embarrassment of a reply by the arrival of Cecil Chacewater. He nodded curtly to the two officials as he came up. The Inspector stepped forward to meet him.
“I’d like to put one or two questions to you, Mr Chacewater,” he said, ignoring the look on Sir Clinton’s face.
Cecil looked Armadale up and down before replying.
“Well, go on,” he said, shortly.
“First of all, Mr Chacewater,” the Inspector began, “I want to know when you last saw your brother alive.”
Cecil replied without the slightest hesitation:
“On the morning I left Ravensthorpe. We’d had a disagreement and I left the house.”
“That was the last time you saw him?”
“No. I see him now.”
The Inspector looked up angrily from his notebook.
“You’re giving the impression of quibbling, Mr Chacewater.”
“I’m answering your questions, Inspector, to the best of my ability.”
Armadale tried a fresh cast.
“Where did you go when you left Ravensthorpe?”
“To London.”
“You’ve been in London, then, until this morning?”
Cecil paused for a moment or two before answering.
“May I ask, Inspector, whether you’re bringing any charge against me? If you are, then I believe you ought to caution me. If you aren’t, then I don’t propose to answer your questions. Now, what are you going to do about it?”
Armadale was hardly prepared for this move.
“I think you’re injudicious, Mr Chacewater,” he said in a tone which he was evidently striving not to make threatening. “I know you didn’t arrive by the first train this morning, though you told us you did. Your position’s rather an awkward one, if you think about it.”
“You can’t bluff me, Inspector,” Cecil returned. “Make your charge, and I’ll know how to answer it. If you won’t make a charge, I don’t propose to help you with a fishing inquiry.”
The Inspector glanced at Sir Clinton’s face, and on it he read quite plainly the Chief Constable’s disapproval of his proceedings. He decided to go no further for the moment. Sir Clinton intervened to make the situation less strained.
“Would you mind looking at him, Cecil, and formally identifying him?”
Cecil came forward rather reluctantly, knelt down beside his brother’s body, examined the clothes, and finally, removing the handkerchief, gazed for a moment or two at the shattered face. The shot had entered the right side of the head and had done enough damage to show that it had been fired almost in contact with the skin.
Cecil replaced the handkerchief and rose to his feet. For a few moments he stood looking down at the body. Then he turned away.
“That’s my brother, undoubtedly.”
Then, as if speaking to himself, he added in a regretful tone:
“Poor old Chuchundra!”
To the Inspector’s amazement Sir Clinton started a little at the word.
“Was that a nickname, Cecil?”
Cecil looked up, and the Inspector could see that he was more than a little moved.
“We used to call him that when we were kids.”
Sir Clinton’s next question left the Inspector still further bemused.
“Out of The Jungle Book by any chance?”
Cecil seemed to see the drift of the inquiry, for he replied at once:
“Yes. Rikki-tikki-tavi, you know.”
“I was almost certain of it,” said Sir Clinton. “I can put a name to the trouble, I think. It begins with A.”
Cecil reflected for a moment before replying.
“Yes. You’re right. It does begin with A.”
“That saves a lot of bother,” said Sir Clinton, thankfully. “I was just going to fish in a fresh direction to get that bit of information. I’m quite satisfied now.”
Cecil seemed to pay little attention to the Chief Constable’s last remark. His eyes went round to the shattered thing that had been his brother.
“I’d no notion it was as bad as all this,” he said, more to himself than to the others. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have been so bitter about things.”
The sergeant and constables appeared at the edge of the clearing.
“Seen all you want to see, Inspector?” asked Sir Clinton. “Then in that case we can leave the body in charge of the sergeant. I see they’ve got a stretcher with them. They can take it down to Ravensthorpe.”
Armadale rapidly gave the necessary orders to his subordinates.
“Now, Inspector, I think we’ll go over to Ravensthorpe ourselves. I want to see that chauffeur again. Something’s occurred to me.”
As the three men walked through the belt of wood-land Sir Clinton turned to Cecil.
“There’s one point I’d like to have cleared up. Do you know if Maurice had any visitors in the last three months or so—people who wanted to see the collection?”
Cecil reflected for a time before he could recall the facts.
“Now you mention it, I remember hearing Maurice say something about a fellow—a Yankee—who was writing a book on Leonardo. That chap certainly came here one day and Maurice showed him the stuff. The medallions were what he chiefly wanted to look at, of course.”