“Oh, there?” Sir Clinton answered. “I think I know the place. I’ve driven past it often: a brown-tiled roof and a lot of wood on the front of the house.”
“That’s it, sir. The postman described it to me.”
“Anything more about it?”
“It’s empty most of the year, sir. The Hassendeans use it as a kind of summer place—shift up there in the late spring, usually, the postman said. It overlooks the sea and stands high, you remember. Plenty of fresh air. But it’s shut up just now, sir. They came back to town over two months ago—middle of September or thereabouts.”
Sir Clinton seemed to wake up suddenly.
“That fails to stir you, Inspector? Strange! Now it interests me devilishly, I can assure you. We’ll run up there now in my car.”
The Inspector was obviously disconcerted by this sudden desire for travel.
“It’s hardly worth your while to go all that way, sir,” he protested. “I can easily go out myself if you think it necessary.”
Sir Clinton signed a couple of documents before replying. Then he rose from his chair.
“I don’t mind saying, Inspector, that two murders within three hours is too high an average for my taste when they happen in my district. It’s a case of all hands to the pumps, now, until we manage to get on the track. I’m not taking the thing out of your hands. It’s simply going on the basis that two heads are better than one. We’ve got to get to the bottom of the business as quick as we can.”
“I quite understand, sir,” Flamborough acknowledged without pique. “There’s no grudge in the matter. I’m only afraid that this business is a practical joke and you’ll be wasting your time.”
Sir Clinton dissented from the last statement with a movement of his hand.
“By the way,” he added, “we ought to take a doctor with us. If there’s anything in the thing at all, I’ve a feeling that Mr. Justice hasn’t disturbed us for a trifle. Let’s see. Dr. Steel will have his hands full with things just now; we’ll need to get someone else. That Ringwood man has his wits about him, from what I saw of him. Ring him up, Inspector, and ask him if he can spare the time. Tell him what it’s about, and if he’s the sportsman I take him for, he’ll come if he can manage it. Tell him we’ll call for him in ten minutes and bring him home again as quick as we can. And get them to bring my car round now.”
Twenty minutes later, as they passed up an avenue, Sir Clinton turned to Dr. Ringwood:
“Recognise it, doctor?”
Dr. Ringwood shook his head.
“Never seen it before to my knowledge.”
“You were here last night, though. Look, there’s Ivy Lodge.”
“So I see by the name on the gatepost. But remember it’s the first time I’ve seen the house itself. The fog hid everything last night.”
Sir Clinton swung the car to the left at the end of the avenue.
“We shan’t be long now. It’s a straight road out from here to the place we’re bound for.”
As they reached the outskirts of Westerhaven, Sir Clinton increased his speed, and in a very short time Dr. Ringwood found himself approaching a long low bungalow which faced the sea-view at a little distance from the road. It had been built in the shelter of a plantation, the trees of which dominated it on one side; and the garden was dotted with clumps of quick-growing shrubs which helped to give it the appearance of maturity.
Inspector Flamborough stepped down from the back seat of the car as Sir Clinton drew up.
“The gate’s not locked,” he reported, as he went up to it. “Just wait a moment, sir, while I have a look at the surface of the drive.”
He walked a short distance towards the house, with his eyes on the ground; then he returned and swung the leaves of the gate open for the car to pass.
“You can drive in, sir,” he reported. “The ground was hard last night, you remember; and there isn’t a sign of anything in the way of footmarks or wheel-prints to be seen there.”
As the car passed him, he swung himself aboard again; and Sir Clinton drove up to near the house.
“We’ll get down here, I think, and walk the rest,” he proposed, switching off his engine. “Let’s see. Curtains all drawn. … Hullo! One of the small panes of glass on that front window has been smashed, just at the lever catch. You owe an apology to Mr. Justice, Inspector, I think. He’s not brought us here to an absolute mare’s nest, at any rate. There’s been housebreaking going on.”
Followed by the others, he walked over to the damaged window and examined it carefully.
“No footprints or anything of that sort to be seen,” he pointed out, glancing at the windowsill. “The window’s been shut, apparently, after the housebreaker got in—if he did get in at all. That would be an obvious precaution, in case the open window caught someone’s eye.”
He transferred his attention to the casement itself. It was a steel-framed one, some four feet high by twenty inches wide, which formed part of a set of three which together made up the complete window. Steel bars divided it into eight small panes.
“The Burglar’s Delight!” Sir Clinton described it scornfully. “You knock in one pane, just like this; then you put your hand through; turn the lever-fastener; swing the casement back on its hinges—and walk inside. There isn’t even the trouble of hoisting a sash as you have to do with the old-fashioned window. Two seconds would see you inside the
