"Have you searched the quarries'?"

"Not yet. 'Tis no good turning fifty men into this jakes of a hole till we know whether it will be needful; but all points to somewhere else. A terrible strange job--so strange, in fact, that we shall probably find a criminal lunatic at the bottom of it. Everything looks pretty clear, but it don't look sane."

"You haven't found the body?"

"No; but you can often prove murder mighty well without it--as now.

Come out to the bungalow and I'll tell you what there is to tell.

There's been a murder all right, but we're more likely to find the murderer than his victim."

They went out together and soon stood in the building.

"Now let's have the story from where you come in," said Brendon, and Inspector Halfyard told his tale.

"Somewhere about a quarter after midnight I was knocked up. Down I came and Constable Ford, on duty at the time, told me that Mrs.

Pendean was wishful to see me. I knew her and her husband very well, for they'd been the life and soul of the Moss Supply Depot, run at Princetown during the war.

"Her husband and her uncle, Captain Redmayne, had gone to the bungalow, as they often did after working hours, to carry on a bit; but at midnight they hadn't come home, and she was put about for 'em. Hearing of the motor bike, I thought there might have been a breakdown, if not an accident, so I told Ford to knock up another chap and go down along the road. Which they did do--and Ford came back at half after three with ugly news that they'd seen n.o.body, but they'd found a great pool of blood inside the bungalow--as if somebody had been sticking a pig there. 'Twas daylight by then and I motored out instanter. The mess is in the room that will be the kitchen, and there's blood on the lintel of the back door which opens into the kitchen.

"I looked round very carefully for anything in the nature of a clue, but I couldn't see so much as a b.u.t.ton. What makes any work here wasted, so far as I can see, is the evidence of the people at the cottages in the by-road to Foggintor, where we came in. A few quarrymenn and their families live there, and also Tom Ringrose, the water bailiff down on Walkham River. The quarrymen don't work here because this place hasn't been open for more than a hundred years; but they go to Duke's quarry down at Merivale, and most of 'em have push bikes to take 'em to and from their job.

"At these cottages, on my way back to breakfast, I got some information of a very definite kind. Two men told the same tale and they hadn't met before they told it. One was Jim Ba.s.sett, under foreman at Duke's quarry, and one was Ringrose, the water bailiff who lives in the end cottage. Ba.s.sett has been at the bungalow once or twice, as granite for it comes from the quarry at Merivale. He knew Mr. Pendean and Captain Redmayne by sight and, last night, somewhere about ten o'clock by summer time, while it was still light, he saw the captain leave and pa.s.s the cottages. Ba.s.sett was smoking at his door at the time and Robert Redmayne came alone, pushing his motor bicycle till he reached the road. And behind the saddle he had a big sack fastened to the machine.

"Ba.s.sett wished him 'good night' and he returned the compliment; and half a mile down the by-road, Ringrose also pa.s.sed him. He was now on his machine and riding slowly till he reached the main road.

He reached it and then Ringrose heard him open out and get up speed.

He proceeded up the hill and the water bailiff supposed that he was going back to Princetown."

Inspector Halfyard stopped.

"And that is all you know?" asked Brendon.

"As to Captain Redmayne's movements--yes," answered the elder.

"There will probably be information awaiting us when we return to Princetown, as inquiries are afoot along both roads--to Moreton and Exeter on the one side and by Dartmeet to Ashburton and the coast towns on the other. He must have gone off to the moor by one of those ways, I judge; and if he didn't, then he turned in his tracks and got either to Plymouth, or away to the north. We can't fail to pick up his line pretty quickly. He's a noticeable man."

"Did Ringrose also report the sack behind the motor bicycle?"

"He did."

"Before you mentioned it?"

"Yes, he volunteered that item, just as Ba.s.sett had done."

"Let me see what's to be seen here, then," said Brendon, and they entered the kitchen of the bungalow together.

CHAPTER III

THE MYSTERY

Brendon followed Halfyard into the apartment destined to be the kitchen of Michael Pendean's bungalow, and the inspector lifted some tarpaulins that had been thrown upon a corner of the room. In the midst stood a carpenter's bench, and the floor, the boards of which had already been laid, was littered with shavings and tools. Under the tarpaulin a great red stain soaked to the walls, where much blood had flowed. It was still wet in places and upon it lay shavings partially ensanguined. At the edge of the central stain were smears and, among them, half the impress of a big, nail-studded boot.

"Have the workmen been in here this morning?" asked Brendon, and Inspector Halfyard answered that they had not.

"Two constables were here last night after one o'clock--the men I sent from Princetown when Mrs. Pendean gave the alarm," he said.

"They looked round with an electric torch and found the blood. One came back; the other stopped on the spot all night. I was out here myself before the masons and carpenters came to work, and I forbade them to touch anything till we'd made our examination. Mr. Pendean was in the habit of doing a bit himself after hours."

"Can the men say if anything was done last night--in the way of work on the bungalow?"

"No doubt they'd know."

Brendon sent for a mason and a carpenter; and while the latter alleged that nothing had been added to the last work of himself and his mate, the mason, pointing to a wall which was destined to inclose the garden, declared that some heavy stones had been lifted and mortared into place since he left on the previous evening at five o 'clock.

"Pull down all the new work," directed Brendon.

Then he turned to examine the kitchen more closely. A very careful survey produced no results and he could find nothing that the carpenters were not able to account for. There was no evidence of any struggle. A sheep might as easily have been killed in the chamber as a man; but he judged the blood to be human and Halfyard had made one discovery of possible importance. The timbers of the kitchen door were already set up and they had received a preliminary coat of white paint. This was smeared at the height of a man's shoulder with blood.

Brandon then examined the ground immediately outside the kitchen door. It was rough and trampled with many feet of the workmen but gave no special imprints or other indications of the least value.

For twenty yards he scrutinized every inch of the ground and presently found indications of a motor bicycle. It had stood here--ten yards from the bungalow--and the marks of the wheels and the rest lowered to support it were clear enough in the peat. He traced the impressions as the machine was wheeled away and observed that at one soft place they had pressed very deeply into the earth.

The pattern of the tire was familiar to him, a Dunlop. Half an hour later one of the constables approached, saluted Mark, and made a statement.

"They've pulled down the wall, sir, and found nothing there; but Fulford, the mason, says that a sack is missing. It was a big sack, in the corner of the shed out there, and the cement that it contained is all poured out; but the sack has gone."

The detective visited the spot and turned over the pile of cement, which revealed nothing. Then, having himself searched the workmen's shed without discovering any clue, he strolled in the immediate neighbourhood of the bungalow and examined the adjacent entrance to the quarries. Not the least spark of light rewarded the search. He came back presently out of the rain which had now begun to fall steadily--but not before he had strolled as far as the fishing pools and seen clear marks of naked, adult feet on the sandy brink.

Inspector Halfyard, who had remained in the bungalow, joined him while he examined the other five chambers with close attention. In the apartment destined for a sitting-room, which faced out upon the great view to the southwest, Brendon found a cigar half smoked. It had evidently been flung down alight and had smouldered for some time, scorching the wooden floor before it went out. He found also the end of a broken, brown boot lace with a bra.s.s tag. The lace had evidently frayed away and probably had broken when being tied. But he attached not the least importance to either fragment. Nothing that he regarded as of value resulted from inspection of the remaining rooms and Brendon presently decided that he would return to Princetown. He showed Halfyard the footprints by the water and had them protected with a tarpaulin.

"Something tells me that this is a pretty simple business all the same," he said. "We need waste no more time here, inspector--at any rate until we have got back to the telephone and heard the latest."

"What's your idea?"

"I should say we have to do with an unfortunate man who's gone mad,"

replied the detective; "and a madman doesn't take long to find as a rule. I think it's murder right enough and I believe we shall find that this soldier, who's had sh.e.l.l shock, turned on Pendean and cut his throat, then, fondly hoping to hide the crime, got away with the body. Why I judge him to be mad is because Mrs. Pendean, who has told me the full story of the past, was able to a.s.sure me that the men had become exceedingly friendly, and that certain differences, which existed between them at the outbreak of the war, were entirely composed. And even granting that they quarrelled again, the quarrel must have suddenly sprung up. That seems improbable and one can't easily imagine a sudden row so tremendous that it ends in murder.

"Redmayne was a big, powerful man and he may have struck without intention to kill; but this mess means more than a blow with a fist.

I think that he was a homicidal maniac and probably plotted the job beforehand with a madman's limited cunning; and if that is so, there's pretty sure to be news waiting for us at Princetown. Before dark we ought to know where are both the dead and the living man.

These footprints mean a bather, or perhaps two. We'll study them later and drag the pond, if necessary."

The correctness of Brendon's deduction was made manifest within an hour, and the operations of Robert Redmayne defined up to a point. A man was waiting at the police station--George French, ostler at Two Bridges Hotel, on West Dart.

"I knew Captain Redmayne," he said, "because he'd been down once or twice of late to tea at Two Bridges. Last night, at half after ten, I was crossing the road from the garage and suddenly, without warning, a motor bike came over the bridge. I heard the rush of it and only got out of the way by a yard. There was no light showing but the man went through the beam thrown from the open door of the hotel and I saw it was the captain by his great mustache and his red waistcoat.

"He didn't see me, because it was taking him all his time to look after himself, and he'd just let her go, to rush the stiff hill that rises out of Two Bridges. He was gone like a puff of smoke and must have been running terrible fast--fifty mile an hour I dare say. We heard as there was trouble at Princetown and master sent me up over to report what I'd seen."

"Which way did he go after he had pa.s.sed, Mr. French?" asked Brendon, who knew the Dartmoor country well. "The road forks above Two Bridges. Did he take the right hand for Dartmeet, or the left for Post Bridge and Moreton?"

But George could not say.