In White Raiment

“Ah! I understand,” I said. “Let’s hope that the detectives will discover something when they arrive. It was evidently a most dastardly bit of work.”

The man’s remark that I had no knowledge of the spot where the body was found aroused me to a sense of my own position. If it were known that I had entered the park that night, might not a serious suspicion fall upon me?

I recollected how, as I had crossed the bridge, I had heard distinctly a short cough. The murderer was, without doubt, lurking there when I had passed.

“Every one is talking of it. Lots of people are going down to see the spot. I shall go down presently. Do you care to come?” the landlord asked.

I acceded willingly, for I wished to see the place in daylight, and, as one of a crowd of sightseers, I should escape observation.

While I ate my breakfast, the man, full of the mystery, continued discussing it in all its phases. I allowed him to run on, for every word he spoke was, to me, of intense interest.

“The poor Colonel was the very last man to have an enemy who would take his life,” he said.

“But his second wife?”

“Ah!” he said with a knowing air, “he was never quite the same after he married again. They say that she flirted indiscriminately with every man she came across, no matter who he was.”

“As bad as that – eh?”

“Of course I don’t know for certain. I only tell you what I’ve ’eard.”

“Of course, of course,” I said. “People will always talk. But do you really think it’s true that she is as giddy as reported?”

“I really don’t know,” he responded, raising his eyebrows. “These women of the upper ten are a queer lot sometimes.”

“Well, the Colonel’s death is a very mysterious affair, at any rate,” I observed.

“Very,” he said. “And one or two evil-tongued people are already suggesting that she might have had a hand in it.”

“That is cruel,” I answered. “She may be unpopular, but that’s no reason why she should be a murderess. I suppose they base their suspicions upon the quarrel of which you told me yesterday.”

“I suppose so. The first Mrs Chetwode was a born lady, but of this woman nobody ever knew anything of who or what she was before he was so misguided as to marry her.”

“Perhaps the police inquiries will throw some light upon that,” I remarked.

“Let’s hope so,” he responded. And then, having finished my breakfast, we went together to the park.

Fortunately, on the previous night, I had been able to slip out and in unobserved, for the landlord had been absent with his wife at a neighbour’s, and was therefore not aware of a fact which might prove damning against me – namely, that I had disguised myself in a suit of secondhand clothes.

The tragedy had been enacted at the bridge I had crossed. I had passed over that very spot, and had actually heard the sound of the assassin’s cough.

Was that a signal to an accomplice? It seemed very much as though there had been two persons lying in wait for the Colonel, and I, having passed at the moment when they expected him, had narrowly escaped being struck down. That cough was possibly the signal that had saved me.

“Pass along, please! Pass along!” said a constable, as I stood staring in wonder at the spot where the body had been found half in the water among the waving reeds.

We receded for some distance, while the publican pointed out the geographical position of the spot with its relation to the house and the high-road.

“It’s a lonely place ’ere of a night,” he said. “Just the place where a man might commit a murder. Funny, however, that the Colonel was wandering about in the park alone!”

“Curious, too, that his presence was not missed by his wife, or any of the household.”

“Yes,” he said. “Very mysterious, indeed. He must have gone out unknown to any one, and, when the place was locked up for the night, it was believed he was indoors.”

“He was wearing evening dress,” I said.

“Oh, I believe so. But I’m not certain. I’ve not heard how he was dressed – I say, Harding,” he cried, turning to a bent old man who chanced to be passing, “how was the Colonel dressed when he was found?”

“In his cut-away coat and shirt,” was the reply. “They said that his shirt-stud was stolen.”

“Ah!” exclaimed my garrulous friend, the publican, “that looks as though it was done with a motive of robbery – don’t it?”

“Yes,” I said, my thoughts reverting again, as they constantly did, to that strange conversation which I had overheard in the darkness, the words of a man who had practically acknowledged himself to be an assassin.

When we again emerged upon the high-road I parted from my companion, he returning to Hounslow and I continuing my walk along the highway leading to Twickenham.

I wandered aimlessly, trying to form some resolution. Had any person seen me enter or leave the park on the previous night? If they had then my position was certainly one of peril, for, if arrested on suspicion, I should experience the utmost difficulty in clearing myself.

Where was Beryl? I called her Beryl, for that was the name by which I had first known her, and it appeared to me that her cousin had falsely introduced her to me as Feo. Had they both returned to London, or were they still at the Park?

At a point beyond Kneller Hall, just then within sight of Twickenham Town, I turned back, and, passing along the boundary of the park to Hounslow railway station, made inquiries of a friendly ticket collector, from whom I learnt that the two ladies had left, with several of the other guests for Waterloo half an hour before.

This information decided me. I went on into the town, and, entering the police-station, sought an interview with the inspector. It fortunately happened that Mr Rowling, the sub-divisional inspector from Brentford, a tall, rosy-faced, smart-looking man, was there, and he being the chief of that sub-district of the T Division, I gave him my card and placed myself at his disposal.

He had ridden over from Brentford in response to a telegram, and looked a veritable giant in his long police riding-boots and spurs. When I told him that I was a medical man who took a great interest in the detection of crime, and therefore wished to assist in the inquiries regarding the Colonel’s death, he looked at me curiously with his merry blue eyes, and again glanced at my card.

“Well, Doctor,” he said, “I’ve sent to Scotland Yard as well as to my superintendent at Hammersmith, and we are expecting three or four men from the Criminal Investigation Department to take up the case. They left by the 09:05 from Waterloo, and will arrive here in a few minutes, I hope.”

“But cannot you give me permission to assist them?”

“That, I fear, is beyond my power. The inquiries are, you see, left entirely to them.”

“But you are chief of this division of police. Surely you can give me permission?”

Before replying he made further inquiries as to who I was and where I lived.

While we were talking three men in plain clothes entered the office and saluted. Then, after briefly explaining the discovery to them, Rowling introduced me as an assistant.

The elder of the three, a thin-faced, dark-haired man, who was an inspector – Bullen by name – while his companions were sergeants, seemed greatly surprised at my application.

“It’s quite irregular, you know,” he said briefly.

“But I think, under the circumstances,” said Rowling, “that the Doctor might be of some service. He has had previous experience in murder cases, and has just applied to me. Of course I referred him to you, as you are to direct the inquiry.”

“The difficulty is that any little indiscretion on his part might upset our plans,” responded the detective.

“I will give you my word of honour to preserve secrecy in everything, and likewise to obey your orders as though I were a subordinate,” I said eagerly.

“Very well,” he replied at last, but not without some reluctance. “Of course, you are not attached to the inquiry officially, but I will give you permission to act with us.”