Sir Clinton refused to follow him into this bypath.
“Nobody else?”
“No, I can remember nobody who ever took the slightest interest in it. It’s not, somehow, the sort of thing that does interest people. What I mean to say is, there’s not much use in it, is there?”
Sir Clinton diverged for an instant from his usual reticence.
“It’s strange the murderer didn’t leave some trace, then. I’d have expected to find him using a thread to guide him out of the Maze—like Theseus in the labyrinth.”
He paused for a moment, then added:
“But perhaps he rolled it up as he went out, so as to leave nothing behind.”
He rose as he spoke and put his last questions.
“Do you suspect anyone in this matter, Mr. Shandon? Was there anyone in the background whom we haven’t heard about? A woman, for instance?”
Ernest Shandon seemed to ponder these queries in his dull way.
“No,” he said at last, “I don’t think so. Not to my knowledge, at least. Of course my brothers had their own affairs; but that’s to be expected in families, isn’t it? I mean, they didn’t tell me everything, of course. But bar this Shackleton business, I can’t say I ever heard anything that would fit the case. No, I can’t remember ever hearing anything of the sort.”
The Chief Constable wasted no further time.
“I shall have to come back again, Mr. Shandon. Will you think over the matter meanwhile and take a note of anything you think likely to help us. And you also,” he added, turning to the rest of the group.
As the door was closing behind him and Wendover, he heard Ernest’s verdict, delivered in a disconsolate tone:
“This’ll be an infernal bother!”
In the hall, they found Costock in charge of a constable and apparently resigned to his detention. When questioned, he added but little to the story which he had told earlier in the day to Stenness.
“What brought you to this neighbourhood at all?” Sir Clinton demanded. “You don’t expect us to believe that you came here by pure chance, do you?”
“No,” Costock admitted. “If I was pitchin’ a yarn to a flattie or to an ordinary busy, I’d say that; an’ I’d stick to it. But you know a bit too much about me, Driffield; an’ it wouldn’t take with you. So I’ll just take an’ tell you the truth, so I will.”
Sir Clinton’s smile showed more than a touch of unbelief.
“Make it the whole truth, when you’re at it,” he advised, “and begin by explaining how you happen to be here at this particular period.”
“Well, you see, this Shandon man—Roger—he owed me something, so he did. He didn’t play straight with me out at Kimberley.”
“So you came home as soon as you got out, to blackmail him? That’s obvious. You needn’t protest, Costock. It’s really not of any importance, for I’m quite convinced that you didn’t reach the stage of negotiations, so there’s no harm done. You put up in the village, waiting for a chance to see him alone, I suppose?”
Costock nodded.
“And now explain how you came to be in at the death, please.”
“It was this way. As I was going through the village I came on a boatman. It’s a hot day, so I thought I’d go on the river for a row.”
“And perhaps spy out the land, seeing that the grounds are easily accessible from the riverbank?”
“Well, I don’t say yes and I don’t say no. It might have come in handy.”
“And you took a pistol with you on your outing?”
Costock had his explanation ready.
“I thought as perhaps I’d run across Shandon and we might get talking. He’s a violent-tempered swine—leastways, he was so. And ’t seemed to me best to have a quietener in my pocket; for I’d have stood no chance at all against him, man to man. He could ha’ licked me with one hand.”
“When did you leave the boathouse in the village?”
“ ’Bout three o’clock, as near as I can remember. But the boatman could tell you. He took the time for hirin’ the boat.”
“You came up the river fairly slowly, then; and what happened after that?”
“As I came along, I noticed a little private boathouse and a landing-stage. I knew that would be Shandon’s place, for I’d asked the boatman about it. Just as I was coming abreast of it, I heard some yells; so I stopped rowing and let the boat drift. Then I heard someone squalling ‘Murder’ at the pitch of his voice, behind some hedges near by the water. So I pulled in, hitched up my boat, and ran through the nearest hole in the hedge. And then I got tangled up in that fandango of a thing they have there—what they call the Maze.”
“You didn’t see anyone running away from the Maze before you got in?”
“No.”
“Did you run about in the Maze or did you walk?”
Costock considered for a moment or two.
“I walked. Once I was inside, I got tangled up, as I told you; and I didn’t want to be running round corners slap into a murderer.”
“And then?”
“Oh, after that I heard a lot o’ shoutin’ and a girl screamin’ an’ all that sort o’ thing. But I was that tangled up I could get nowhere. I’d got fair lost in that infernal monkey-puzzle.”
Sir Clinton turned to Wendover.
“This fellow was searched, wasn’t he?”
“Yes. Nothing on him but the pistol, and we took that away.”
Sir Clinton turned back to Costock.
“You can go now; but you’ll have to stay in the village for a day or two. You’ll be wanted at the inquest. I may as well tell you that you’ll be watched, so it’s no use trying to bolt.”
He dismissed the ex-I.D.B. with scant
