The Trees of Pride Read online

This man, who wassmoking a pipe on the bench beside him, with his knapsack before him onthe table, was an artist come to sketch on that romantic coast; a tallman in a velvet jacket, with a shock of tow-colored hair, a long fairbeard, but eyes of dark brown, the effect of which contrast remindedPaynter vaguely, he hardly knew why, of a Russian. The stranger carriedhis knapsack into many picturesque corners; he obtained permission toset up his easel in that high garden where the late Squire had held hisal fresco banquets. But Paynter had never had an opportunity of judgingof the artist's work, nor did he find it easy to get the artist even totalk of his art. Cyprian himself was always ready to talk of any art,and he talked of it excellently, but with little response. He gave hisown reasons for preferring the Cubists to the cult of Picasso, but hisnew friend seemed to have but a faint interest in either. He insinuatedthat perhaps the Neo-Primitives were after all only thinning their line,while the true Primitives were rather tightening it; but the strangerseemed to receive the insinuation without any marked reaction offeeling. When Paynter had even gone back as far into the past as thePost-Impressionists to find a common ground, and not found it, othermemories began to creep back into his mind. He was just reflecting,rather darkly, that after all the tale of the peacock trees needed amysterious stranger to round it off, and this man had much the air ofbeing one, when the mysterious stranger himself said suddenly:

  "Well, I think I'd better show you the work I'm doing down here."

  He had his knapsack before him on the table, and he smiled rather grimlyas he began to unstrap it. Paynter looked on with polite expressions ofinterest, but was considerably surprised when the artist unpacked andplaced on the table, not any recognizable works of art, even of the mostCubist description, but (first) a quire of foolscap closely writtenwith notes in black and red ink, and (second), to the American's extremeamazement, the old woodman's ax with the linen wrapper, which he hadhimself found in the well long ago.

  "Sorry to give you a start, sir," said the Russian artist, with amarked London accent. "But I'd better explain straight off that I'm apoliceman."

  "You don't look it," said Paynter.

  "I'm not supposed to," replied the other. "Mr. Ashe brought me down herefrom the Yard to investigate; but he told me to report to you when I'dgot anything to go on. Would you like to go into the matter now?

  "When I took this matter up," explained the detective, "I did it at Mr.Ashe's request, and largely, of course, on Mr. Ashe's lines. Mr. Asheis a great criminal lawyer; with a beautiful brain, sir, as full as theNewgate Calendar. I took, as a working notion, his view that only youfive gentlemen round the table in the Squire's garden were acquaintedwith the Squire's movements. But you gentlemen, if I may say so, havea way of forgetting certain other things and other people which we arerather taught to look for first. And as I followed Mr. Ashe's inquiriesthrough the stages you know already, through certain suspicions Ineedn't discuss because they've been dropped, I found the thing shapingafter all toward something, in the end, which I think we should haveconsidered at the beginning. Now, to begin with, it is not true thatthere were five men round the table. There were six."

  The creepy conditions of that garden vigil vaguely returned uponPaynter; and he thought of a ghost, or something more nameless than aghost. But the deliberate speech of the detective soon enlightened him.

  "There were six men and five gentlemen, if you like to put it so," heproceeded. "That man Miles, the butler, saw the Squire vanish as plainlyas you did; and I soon found that Miles was a man worthy of a good dealof attention."

  A light of understanding dawned on Paynter's face. "So that was it, wasit!" he muttered.

  "Does all our mythological mystery end with a policeman collaring abutler? Well, I agree with you he is far from an ordinary butler, evento look at; and the fault in imagination is mine. Like many faults inimagination, it was simply snobbishness."

  "We don't go quite so fast as that," observed the officer, in animpassive manner. "I only said I found the inquiry pointing to Miles;and that he was well worthy of attention. He was much more in the oldSquire's confidence than many people supposed; and when I cross-examinedhim he told me a good deal that was worth knowing. I've got it all downin these notes here; but at the moment I'll only trouble you withone detail of it. One night this butler was just outside the Squire'sdining-room door, when he heard the noise of a violent quarrel. TheSquire was a violent gentleman, from time to time; but the curious thingabout this scene was that the other gentleman was the more violent ofthe two. Miles heard him say repeatedly that the Squire was a publicnuisance, and that his death would be a good riddance for everybody. Ionly stop now to tell you that the other gentleman was Dr. Burton Brown,the medical man of this village.

  "The next examination I made was that of Martin, the woodcutter. Uponone point at least his evidence is quite clear, and is, as you willsee, largely confirmed by other witnesses. He says first that the doctorprevented him from recovering his ax, and this is corroborated by Mr.and Mrs. Treherne. But he says further that the doctor admitted havingthe thing himself; and this again finds support in other evidence by thegardener, who saw the doctor, some time afterward, come by himself andpick up the chopper. Martin says that Doctor Brown repeatedly refused togive it up, alleging some fanciful excuse every time. And, finally, Mr.Paynter, we will hear the evidence of the ax itself."

  He laid the woodman's tool on the table in front of him, and began torip up and unwrap the curious linen covering round the handle.

  "You will admit this is an odd bandage," he said. "And that's just theodd thing about it, that it really is a bandage. This white stuff is thesort of lint they use in hospitals, cut into strips like this. But mostdoctors keep some; and I have the evidence of Jake the fisherman, withwhom Doctor Brown lived for some time, that the doctor had this usefulhabit. And, last," he added, flattening out a corner of the rag on thetable, "isn't it odd that it should be marked T.B.B.?"

  The American gazed at the rudely inked initials, but hardly saw them.What he saw, as in a mirror in his darkened memory, was the black figurewith the black gloves against the blood-red sunset, as he had seen itwhen he came out of the wood, and which had always haunted him, he knewnot why.

  "Of course, I see what you mean," he said, "and it's very painful forme, for I knew and respected the man. But surely, also, it's very farfrom explaining everything. If he is a murderer, is he a magician? Whydid the well water all evaporate in a night, and leave the dead man'sbones dry as dust? That's not a common operation in the hospitals, isit?"

  "As to the water, we do know the explanation," said the detective. "Ididn't tumble to it at first myself, being a Cockney; but a little talkwith Jake and the other fisherman about the old smuggling days put mestraight about that. But I admit the dried remains still stump us all.All the same--"

  A shadow fell across the table, and his talk was sharply cut short. Ashewas standing under the painted sign, buttoned up grimly in black, andwith the face of the hanging judge, of which the poet had spoken, plainthis time in the broad sunlight. Behind him stood two big men in plainclothes, very still; but Paynter knew instantly who they were.

  "We must move at once," said the lawyer. "Dr. Burton Brown is leavingthe village."

  The tall detective sprang to his feet, and Paynter instinctivelyimitated him.

  "He has gone up to the Trehernes possibly to say good-by," went on Asherapidly. "I'm sorry, but we must arrest him in the garden there,if necessary. I've kept the lady out of the way, I think. Butyou"--addressing the factitious landscape painter--"must go up at onceand rig up that easel of yours near the table and be ready. We willfollow quietly, and come up behind the tree. We must be careful, forit's clear he's got wind of us, or he wouldn't be doing a bolt."

  "I don't like this job," remarked Paynter, as they mounted toward thepark and garden, the detective darting on ahead.

  "Do you suppose I do?" asked Ashe; and, indeed, his strong, heavy facelooked so lined and old that the red hair seemed unnatural, like a red
wig. "I've known him longer than you, though perhaps I've suspected himlonger as well."

  When they topped the slope of the garden the detective had alreadyerected his easel, though a strong breeze blowing toward the sea rattledand flapped his apparatus and blew about his fair (and false) beardin the wind. Little clouds curled like feathers, were scudding seawardacross the many-colored landscape, which the American art critic hadonce surveyed on a happier morning; but it is doubtful if the landscapepainter paid much attention to it. Treherne was dimly discernible in thedoorway of what was now his house; he would come no nearer, for