The Sittaford Mystery

Chapter 3 Five and Twenty Past Five

Two and a half hours later, just before eight o’clock, Major Burnaby, hurricane lantern in hand, his head dropped forward so as not to meet the blinding drive of snow, stumbled up the path to the door of ‘Hazelmoor’, the small house tenanted by Captain Trevelyan.

The snow had begun to fall about an hour ago—great blinding flakes of it. Major Burnaby was gasping, emitting the loud sighing gasps of an utterly exhausted man. He was numbed with cold. He stamped his feet, blew, puffed, snorted and applied a numbed finger to the bell push.

The bell trilled shrilly.

Burnaby waited. After a pause of a few minutes, as nothing happened, he pushed the bell again.

Once more there was no stir of life.

Burnaby rang a third time. This time he kept his finger on the bell.

It trilled on and on—but there was still no sign of life in the house.

There was a knocker on the door. Major Burnaby seized it and worked it vigorously, producing a noise like thunder.

And still the little house remained silent as the dead.

The Major desisted. He stood for a moment as though perplexed—then he slowly went down the path and out at the gate, continuing on the road he had come towards Exhampton. A hundred yards brought him to the small police station.

He hesitated again, then finally made up his mind and entered.

Constable Graves, who knew the Major well, rose in astonishment.

‘Well, I never, sir, fancy you being out on a night like this.’

‘Look here,’ said Burnaby curtly. ‘I’ve been ringing and knocking at the Captain’s house and I can’t get any answer.’

‘Why, of course, it’s Friday,’ said Graves who knew the habits of the two pretty well. ‘But you don’t mean to say you’ve actually come down from Sittaford on a night like this? Surely the Captain would never expect you.’

‘Whether he’s expected me or not, I’ve come,’ said Burnaby testily. ‘And as I’m telling you, I can’t get in. I’ve rung and knocked and nobody answers.’

Some of his uneasiness seemed to communicate itself to the policeman.

‘That’s odd,’ he said, frowning.

‘Of course, it’s odd,’ said Burnaby.

‘It’s not as though he’s likely to be out—on a night like this.’

‘Of course he’s not likely to be out.’

‘It is odd,’ said Graves again.

Burnaby displayed impatience at the man’s slowness.

‘Aren’t you going to do something?’ he snapped.

‘Do something?’

‘Yes, do something.’

The policeman ruminated.

‘Think he might have been taken bad?’ His face brightened. ‘I’ll try the telephone.’ It stood at his elbow. He took it up and gave the number.

But to the telephone, as to the front door bell, Captain Trevelyan gave no reply.

‘Looks as though he has been taken bad,’ said Graves as he replaced the receiver. ‘And all alone in the house, too. We’d best got hold of Dr Warren and take him along with us.’

Dr Warren’s house was almost next door to the police station. The doctor was just sitting down to dinner with his wife and was not best pleased at the summons. However, he grudgingly agreed to accompany them, drawing on an aged British Warm and a pair of rubber boots and muffling his neck with a knitted scarf.

The snow was still falling.

‘Damnable night,’ murmured the doctor. ‘Hope you haven’t brought me out on a wild goose chase. Trevelyan’s as strong as a horse. Never has anything the matter with him.’

Burnaby did not reply.

Arriving at Hazelmoor once more, they rang again and knocked, but elicited no response.

The doctor then suggested going round the house to one of the back windows.

‘Easier to force than the door.’

Graves agreeing, they went round the back. There was a side door which they tried on the way, but it too was locked, and presently they emerged on the snow-covered lawn that led up to the back windows. Suddenly, Warren uttered an exclamation.

‘The window of the study—it’s open.’

True enough, the window, a French one, was standing ajar. They quickened their steps. On a night like this, no one in his senses would open a window. There was a light in the room that streamed out in a thin yellow band.

The three men arrived simultaneously at the window—Burnaby was the first man to enter, the constable hard on his heels.

They both stopped dead inside and something like a muffled cry came from the ex-soldier. In another moment Warren was beside them, and saw what they had seen.

Captain Trevelyan lay on the floor, face downwards. His arms sprawled widely. The room was in confusion—drawers of the bureau pulled out, papers lying about the floor. The window beside them was splintered where it had been forced near the lock. Beside Captain Trevelyan was a dark green baize tube about two inches in diameter.

Warren sprang forward. He knelt down by the prostrate figure.

One minute sufficed. He rose to his feet, his face pale.

‘He’s dead?’ asked Burnaby.

The doctor nodded.

Then he turned to Graves.

‘It’s for you to say what’s to be done. I can do nothing except examine the body and perhaps you’d rather I didn’t do that until the Inspector comes. I can tell you the cause of death now. Fracture of the base of the skull. And I think I can make a guess at the weapon.’

He indicated the green baize tube.

‘Trevelyan always had them along the bottom of the door—to keep the draught out,’ said Burnaby.

His voice was hoarse.

‘Yes—a very efficient form of sandbag.’

‘My God!’

‘But this here—’ the constable broke in, his wits arriving at the point slowly. ‘You mean—this here is murder.’

The policeman stepped to the table on which stood a telephone.

Major Burnaby approached the doctor.

‘Have you any idea,’ he said, breathing hard, ‘how long he’s been dead?’

‘About two hours, I should say, or possibly three. That’s a rough estimate.’

Burnaby passed his tongue over dry lips.

‘Would you say,’ he asked, ‘that he might have been killed at five twenty-five?’

The doctor looked at him curiously.

‘If I had to give a time definitely, that’s just about the time I would suggest.’

‘Oh my God,’ said Burnaby.

Warren stared at him.

The Major felt his way blindly to a chair, collapsed on to it and muttered to himself whilst a kind of staring terror overspread his face.

‘Five and twenty past five—Oh my God, then it was true after all.’