Fallen Into the Pit

“Hullo, young man! So there you are! Afraid I’m late. Confounded train behind time, as usual. I hope you haven’t been waiting long?”

“Oh, no, only a few minutes. I saw the train pulling out.”

“Well, shall we go on up to the house? We can’t do anything here in the dark. You’ve brought this little book that’s been worrying you so much, have you?” He put a hand to the latch of the gate, and his walking-stick knocked woodenly against the bars as he led the way through. Dominic followed, but rather slowly, with some appearance of reluctance, and closed the gate after him with a flat clapper-note of the latch which echoed through the bushes. Straining his ears, he thought how deathly silent it was after the sound, and his heart made a sick fluttering in him. “What’s the matter?” said Blunden, wheeling to look at him with close, stooping head, in the darkness where the small shape was only another movement of shadow. “You have brought it, haven’t you?”

“Oh, yes, look, here it is. But—couldn’t you look at it here? I was only a bit worried—I don’t want to be too late getting home, and if we go right up to the house won’t it take us rather a long time? My mother—”

A large hand behind his shoulders propelled him gently but firmly forward. “That’s all right, we won’t give your mother any reason to complain this time. I’ll take you home in the car afterwards. Mustn’t get you into trouble for trying to be helpful, must we? But I’m not a cat, laddie, and I can’t see in the dark. Come on up to the house like a good lad, and let’s have a real good look at your find.”

Dominic went where he was led, but walked no faster than he had to. He kept silence for a minute as they walked, and the black coniferous darkness closed behind them like another gate. He listened, stretching his senses until he could imagine all manner of sounds without hearing one; and then he thought there was the lightest and softest of rustling steps, somewhere alongside them in the bushes, and then an owl called, somewhere apparently in the distance, with a wonderfully detached, undisturbing note. But he was aware by a sudden quivering of the nerves that it was not distant, and not an owl. He held his breath, in apprehension that what was perceptible to him should also be obvious to the old man; but the heavy tread never halted.

Dominic drew a deep breath and felt better. Someone, at any rate, had kept the tryst. He ought to have known; he ought to have trusted Pussy, she never had let him down, never once. He clutched the little book, braced his shoulders, and said firmly: “I’d better tell you about it, sir.” His voice sounded clearly in the arching of the trees, a light thread through the darkness. “Look, you can see from the look of it why it took me a long time to make anything of it.” The beam of the torch, shaken by his walking, wobbled tantalizingly upon the sodden grayish covers with their stains of ocher. “It was the day before yesterday, when we were coming up from the Comer and crossing by Webster’s well there, and you know it’s in an awful mess now, after the rain. We were fooling around, ever so many of us, and I found this right in one of the holes in the clay by the brook there. It must have been there some time, and I should have thrown it away again, only, you know, for the murder. But we all used to hope we’d find something that would be a clue.”

“Every boy his own Dick Barton,” said Blunden, with a laugh that boomed among the trees; and he patted Dominic with a pleased hand. “Very natural, especially in the police-sergeant’s son, eh? Well, so you showed it around, I suppose, among you?”

“No, I kept it just to myself,” said Dominie. “I don’t know exactly why. I just did.”

“Why didn’t you give it to your father, right away?”

Dominic wriggled and admitted reluctantly: “Well, I should have, only—the last time I tried to help, there was an awful row. My father was awfully mad at me, and told me not to interfere again. He didn’t like me being in it at all. And I didn’t want to get into any more trouble, so I tried to make it out by myself, this time, at least until I could be sure I’d really got something. And I just couldn’t, though I’d cleaned it up all I could. But honestly, I didn’t like to risk showing him until I was sure. Most of the time I didn’t think it was anything, really,” he confessed, “only it just could be, you see. So then when you were so decent this morning, I thought perhaps if you could read German—and you could!”

“Could and can, old man, so we’ll soon settle it one way or the other. How much did you find out on your own? This is very interesting—and damned enterprising, I may say!”

“Well,” said Dominic, slowly and clearly, “it’s got a lot of dates in it, and some columns of figures, though you can’t make out just what they are, at least not often. It looks like somebody’s accounts, and a sort of diary, and it is German, honestly it is. Look, you can see here!” He stopped, the better to steady the light upon the warped and faded page, and the old man bent his head into the glow beside his, to peer closely, and shut one hand on the nearer side of the book; but somehow Dominic’s hand was interposed, and kept its closer hold.

“Look, that’s a German word, you can read that—it’s the German word for machine. That’s funny, isn’t it? And look here, again—” He pulled himself up suddenly from a skid into enthusiasm, moving on again slowly from under the massive bulk of the old man.

Softly in the dark Blunden said, behind him, over him: “But, my dear boy, you’re perfectly right, it is German. No doubt about it. Now what do you make of that?”

“Well, you see, it’s just that it was found there—where we found him. And he was German. I know it seems farfetched, but I do sort of wonder if it can have fallen out of his pocket somehow. And at the inquest it came out how very careful he was, and kept records of everything he did, almost, even his washing and mending. Only there was quite a lot of money without any records. And in here, look, there’s what seems to be something about money. Columns of figures, and everything. Could it be, do you think, that he was just as careful about that extra money he had, only it was a bit shady where he got it, and so he kept it in a separate book? You do see, don’t you, how it would sort of make sense?”

“Oh, yes, I quite see that!” said the old voice softly, humoring him. A sudden hand reached out again for the book. “Let me see it closer! Of course, I don’t want you to be disappointed, after so much ingenuity, but much better settle it quickly.”

Dominic held on to it, bending the torch upon its pages industriously, and frowning over the unfamiliar syllables. When the hand would have touched, he stopped abruptly, the better to study the inside cover. “Just a minute, sir! It’s funny—a trick of the light, I suppose—there’s something here I’ve tried and tried to make out, even in a good light, and now, all of a sudden—”

“Let me see! Perhaps I can tell you.” He came nearer. Dominic hesitated, and backed a step, looking up at him oddly. “Well, come on, child! You brought it for me to see, didn’t you?”

The torch went out, and left them a moment in the dark, the velvet-black night between the trees extinguishing faces and voices. The wind sighed a little in the bushes, and somewhere on the left a twig cracked, but softly, moistly in the damp undergrowth. When the tiny beam erupted again, glow-wormlike, they were three yards apart, and the small, upturned face, lit from under the chin and very faintly, was an awestruck mask with hollow, staring eyes.