These told their own tale.
_William Standerton had been strangled._
CHAPTER IV
It would be almost impossible to describe in fitting words the effect produced upon James Standerton, by the terrible discovery he had made.
"What does it mean, Wilkins?" he asked in a voice surcharged with horror. "For God's sake, tell me what it means?"
"I don't know myself, sir," the man replied. "It's too terrible for all words. Who can have done it?"
Throwing himself on his knees beside his father's body, James took one of the cold hands in his.
"Father! father!" he cried, in an ecstasy of grief, and then broke down altogether. When calmness returned to him, he rose to his feet, clasped the hands of the dead man upon the breast, and tenderly closed the staring eyes.
"Send for Dr. Brenderton," he said, turning to Wilkins, "and let the messenger call at the police-station on the way and ask the officer in charge to come here without a moment's delay."
The man left him to carry out the order, and James silently withdrew from the room to perform what he knew would be the saddest task of his life. As he descended the stairs he could hear his sister singing in the breakfast-room below.
"You are very late," she said, as he entered the room. "And father too.
I shall have to give him a talking-to when he does come down."
Then she must have realised that something was amiss, for she put down the letter which she had been reading, and took a step towards him. "Has anything happened, Jim?" she enquired, "your face is as white as death."
Then Jim told her everything. The shock to her was even more terrible than it had been to her brother, but she did her best to bear up bravely.
The doctor and the police officer arrived almost simultaneously. Both were visibly upset at the intelligence they had received. Short though William Standerton's residence in the neighbourhood had been, it had, nevertheless, been long enough for them to arrive at a proper appreciation of his worth. He had been a good supporter of all the Local Institutions, a liberal landlord, and had won for himself the reputation of being an honest and just man.
"I sympathise with you more deeply than I can say," said the doctor, when he joined Jim in the library after he had made his examination. "If there is anything more I can do to help you, I hope you will command me."
"Thank you," said Jim simply, "there is not anything however you can do.
Stay! There is one question you can answer. I want you to tell me how long you think my father has been dead?"
"Several hours," replied the medical man. "I should say at least six."
"Is there any sort of doubt in your mind as to the cause of his death?"
"None whatever," the other replied. "All outward appearances point to the fact that death is due to strangulation."
At that moment the police officer entered the room.
"I have taken the liberty, Mr. Standerton," he said, "of locking the door of the room and retaining the key in my possession. It will be necessary for me to report the matter to the Authorities at once, in order that an Inquest may be held. Before I do so, however, may I put one or two questions to you?"
"As many as you like," Jim replied. "I am, of course, more than anxious that the mystery surrounding my father's death shall be cleared up at once, and the murderer brought to Justice."
"In the first place," said the officer, "I see that the window of the bedroom is securely fastened on the inside, so that the assassin, whoever he was, could not have made his entrance by this means. Do you know whether your father was in the habit of locking his door at night?"
"I am sure he was not. A man who has led the sort of life he has done for fifty years does not lock his bedroom door on retiring to rest."
"In that case the murderer must have obtained access to the room through the house, and I must make it my business to ascertain whether any of the windows or doors were open this morning. One more question, Mr.
Standerton, and I have finished for the present. Have you any reason to suppose that your father had an enemy?"
Jim remembered the suspicion that had been in his mind ever since he had made the ghastly discovery that morning.
"I have," he answered. "There was a man in Australia who hated my father with an undying hatred."
"Forgive my saying so, but a man in Australia could scarcely have committed murder in England last night."
"But the man is not in Australia now. He was here yesterday evening, and he and my father had a quarrel. The man was ordered out of the house, and went away declaring that, whatever it might cost, he would be revenged."
"In that case it looks as if the mystery were explained. I must make it my business to discover the whereabouts of the man you mention."
"He was staying at the 'George and Dragon' yesterday," said Jim. "By this time, however, he has probably left the neighbourhood. It should not be difficult to trace him, however; and if you consider a reward necessary, in order to bring about his apprehension more quickly, offer it, and I will pay it only too gladly. I shall know no peace until this dastardly crime has been avenged."
"I can quite understand that," the doctor remarked. "You will have the sympathy of the whole County."
"And now," said the police officer, "I must be going. I shall take a man with me and call at the 'George and Dragon.' The name of the person you mentioned to me is----"
"Richard Murbridge," said Jim, and thereupon furnished the officer with a description of the man in question.
"You will, of course, be able to identify him?"
"I should know him again if I did not see him for twenty years," Jim answered. "Wilkins, the butler, will also be glad to give you evidence as to his coming here last night."
"Thank you," the officer replied. "I will let you know as soon as I have anything to report."
The doctor and the police agent thereupon bade him good-day and took their departure, and Jim went in search of his grief-stricken sister.
The terrible news had by this time permeated the whole household, and had caused the greatest consternation.
"I knew what it would be last night," said the cook. "Though Mr. Wilkins laughed at me, I felt certain that Mary Sampson did not see the Black Dwarf for nothing. Why, it's well known by everybody that whenever that horrible little man is seen in the house death follows within twenty-four hours."
The frightened maids to whom she spoke shuddered at her words.
"What's more," the cook continued, "they may talk about murderers as they please, but they forget that this is not the first time a man has been found strangled in this house. There is more in it than meets the eye, as the saying goes."
"Lor, Mrs. Ryan, you don't mean to say that you think it was the ghost that killed the poor master?" asked one of the maids, her eyes dilating with horror.
"I don't say as how it was, and I don't say as how it wasn't," that lady replied somewhat ambiguously, and then she added oracularly: "Time will show."
In the meantime Jim had written a short note to his sweetheart, telling her of the crime, and imploring her to come to his sister at once. A servant was despatched with it, and half-an-hour later Helen herself appeared in answer.
"Your poor father. I cannot believe it! It is too terrible," she said to her lover, when he greeted her in the drawing-room. "Oh! Jim, my poor boy, how you must feel it. And Alice, too--pray let me go to her at once."
Jim conducted her to his sister's room, and then left the two women together, returning himself to the dead man's study on the floor below.
There he sat himself down to wait, with what patience he could command, for news from the police station. In something less than an hour it came in the shape of a note from the inspector, to the effect that Murbridge had not returned to the "George and Dragon" until a late hour on the previous night, and that he had departed for London by the train leaving Childerbridge Junction shortly before five o'clock that morning.