The Ha-Ha Case Read online

  He broke off here for a moment, fumbled in his pocket for some papers, and then rejected them as unsuitable.

  “Can you give me a page from your note-book?” he asked. “I think I can make things clearer with a sketch.”

  Hinton was using a loose-leaf book, but instead of taking out a sheet he opened the book at a fresh place and handed it across.

  “Just use the book. Here’s a pencil.”

  He watched Jim sketch roughly the outline of the Long Plantation, the course of the Carron, and the lie of the ha-ha.

  “This is about where I was when I heard another shot,” Jim explained. “It was quite near at hand—you see how the stream curves in towards the line of the ha-ha about this point. I was there”—pointing with his pencil—“alongside the top end of that long strip of bushy stuff that lines the Carron bank thereabouts. The bushes grow pretty thick, and I could see nothing of the banks. And of course the ha-ha across the stream was hidden completely from me. A rabbit got up, and I pulled trigger just as it got behind a tree-stump. Then I heard shouting across the stream, but the wind was too gusty to hear words. It was blowing from me towards the Carron, besides. The rabbit bolted from cover and I shot at it. Missed it, though. Then there was more shouting. And, finally, I made out something about an accident. I went down to the bank and when I looked down-stream, I saw Mr. Laxford with his hands to his mouth, shouting for all he was worth, directing me to go round by the bridge—here—as quick as I could. He said my brother had slipped off the ha-ha and his gun had gone off and shot him. I couldn’t get across anywhere nearer than the bridge. It’s a sort of chasm there, and the Carron was swirling down almost bank-full. No one could have got over, short of the bridge. So I ran for all I was worth. When I got to where my brother was, I found the other two standing beside him. He was on the top of the bank. . . .”

  Hinton made an arresting gesture.

  “I thought he’d fallen off the sunk fence.”

  “I expect they lifted him up, then. He was on the ground at the top of the ha-ha when I saw him first. You’d better ask them about it. I’ve no firsthand knowledge.”

  “And then?”

  “I examined him. He was quite dead, of course. There was a pool of blood on the grass. Mr. Hay, I remember, said something about it being a bad job. Mr. Laxford didn’t say anything that I can remember. Then a stranger came out from behind some bushes. Thought he looked a bit queer when I saw him, dazed or something, as if he’d had a shock. Rather like a sleepwalker who’s been waked up suddenly. It seemed funny at the time, but by and by his keepers came and took him away. One of them told me he was a patient at some place called Fairlawns, a mental case, apparently. That explains things, I suppose.”

  “Of course!” Hinton interjected, but it was impossible to guess from his tone what he thought of Mr. Dunne’s incursion.

  “After that,” Jim went on, “Mr. Laxford started off for help. Mr. Hay stayed with us. He seemed very upset; pretty sick, I should say. Worse than I was, and I felt sick enough,” he confessed, touching for the first time on his emotions of the morning.

  “What about your brother’s gun?” Hinton inquired.

  “His gun? Oh, yes, it was lying beside him.”

  “On the top of the sunk fence?”

  “Yes, close beside him.”

  Jim looked puzzled for a moment by the expression on Hinton’s face, then he seemed to see the point.

  “Oh, you mean it ought to have been in the ditch? I suppose they must have lifted it up on to the top when they lifted him.”

  “I’d better see it, just for form’s sake,” Hinton suggested.

  “Of course. It’s in the gun-room. I brought it up myself. One barrel had been fired. There was a live round in the other. And the safety-catch was off, I noticed. Of course it must have been, or the gun couldn’t have gone off.”

  “Naturally,” Hinton agreed.

  Jim seemed to find nothing further to add to his narrative.

  “I think that’s all,” he said, after a moment or two of thought.

  Hinton added a jotting to his notes, and then passed the book to Jim.

  “Mind initialling this, sir, after you’ve read it over? I like to have things in order. By the way, there’ll be an inquest, of course, and the coroner will want your evidence. You’ll get a subpœna later on. An official notice, I mean.”

  As Jim was scribbling his signature at the foot of the inspector’s notes, Hinton made a further request.

  “I’d like to see Mr. Brandon’s gun, sir, merely as a matter of form.”

  Jim led him to the gun-room and handed him Johnnie’s gun from the rack. The inspector examined it for a moment or two, but his mere handling of it betrayed that he was no expert.

  “What sort of gun is it?” he inquired doubtfully.

  “A 12-bore, half-choke. I don’t know the maker’s name.”

  “Is this the safety-catch?” Hinton demanded, fiddling with the little lever. “It’s off now, I think you said?”

  “No, it’s on at present. It was off when I picked up the gun from the grass,” Jim explained, “but when I handle a gun I always push the slide over to ‘safety,’ and I expect I did it almost without thinking what I was doing. It’s one of these movements one makes automatically. It gets to be second nature and one doesn’t notice one’s doing it.”

  “I see,” Hinton assured him with an understanding air. “Pity everybody isn’t as careful.”

  He fumbled for a moment over opening the breech, extracted the cartridges, and examined them.

  “One unused cartridge and one spent one, just as you said. We have to see things with our own eyes,” he added, half-apologetically. “‘Eley-Kynoch 12.’ That 12 is for 12-bore, I suppose. What does this big ‘5’ mean on the cardboard at the other end?”

  “Loaded with Number Five shot,” Jim explained patiently.

  “H’m! The card’s been blown away from the other one when it was fired. What had it in it, do you know?”

  “It had Number Five in it, too,” Jim assured him. “We were all using Number Five this morning. I remember that perfectly well, because we had a little argument about it at the time. Just to be sure . . .”

  He fished a number of cartridges from his jacket pocket and showed the inspector that each of them had the figure 5 on the wad.

  “Quite so,” said Hinton. “Now I see three other guns here. These are the ones the rest of the party were carrying?”

  Jim confirmed this with a nod.

  “This is my own gun,” he said, indicating it. “This other one, with the score along the wood of the stock, is the one Mr. Laxford was using. The third was in Mr. Hay’s hands. These two belong to the house, I believe.”

  “I see, I see,” Hinton assured him in a tone which showed no interest in the matter. “And now I think that’s all I want with you, Mr. Brandon. I’ve Mr. Laxford and Mr. Hay to see now.”

  “They’re in the smoking-room, I believe,” Jim volunteered. “I’ll show you the way, if you’ll come with me.”

  Jim left him at the door, going off to rejoin Oswald. The inspector entered the smoking-room and introduced himself. When he went in, Hay was hunched forward in a big saddle-bag chair, a glass of neat whisky in his hand, and a forgotten cigar sending up a spiral of blue smoke from the ashtray at his side. His red face wore an angry and perplexed expression, and there was something like uneasiness in his little pig-like eyes as they swung round to the new-comer. Laxford was standing beside the mantelpiece, aimlessly fidgeting with one of the ornaments. His face was turned away from Hinton, but his whole attitude suggested disquietude of an extreme type. When they saw the inspector, they both did their best to appear at ease; but to Hinton their bearing was eloquent of their having been interrupted in the midst of some uncomfortable discussion.

  “Bit of a knock for them, this affair,” Hinton reflected, as he remembered the appearance of the body upstairs.

  “You’ve come to make some inquiries, o
f course,” Laxford said, when the inspector had given his name. “Have you seen Mr. Brandon? Oh, you have? And Mr. Dunne?”

  “I’ve seen Mr. Brandon. Mr. Dunne’s gone away, but I have his address,” Hinton explained.

  Laxford seemed to hesitate for a moment before speaking again.

  “I wonder would it make matters clearer if we went over the ground?” he said tentatively. “I think I could explain better if you saw the actual ground. What do you say, Hay?”

  “Suits me. It’ll give us a mouthful of fresh air, anyhow,” Hay declared ungraciously as he hoisted himself out of his chair. He gulped the rest of his whisky and set down his glass. “Go now, eh?”

  As they trudged along the road to the gardener’s cottage, Hay left all explanation to Laxford. He volunteered no information, and maintained an attitude of morose aloofness, as though occupied with his own reflections. Laxford gave the inspector the impression of a man who forces himself to talk in order to avoid awkward silences. He, like Hay, seemed to be engrossed by some problem which never came to the surface, but he was evidently trying to conceal his absorption by a flow of trivialities.

  “This is where we stood, taking shelter from the rain,” he explained, when they reached the cottage. “Stoke came out and invited us into the cottage. It wasn’t worth while. We stood in the porch till the shower passed. Ah! There’s Stoke. He can tell you what he saw.”

  The gardener had evidently seen them from the window, for he came out and joined the party.

  “One thing at a time, if you please, sir,” Hinton suggested. “I’ll have your story first. It keeps things ship-shape in my notes,” he explained, to avoid giving offence.

  “I hadn’t thought of that. Of course you’re right,” Laxford agreed with a certain eagerness. “Well, after the rain stopped, we went on. We were going to shoot in the Plantation, there, on the way back to the house. We split up, of course, to avoid shooting into one another by accident. Young Brandon, poor chap, was always careless with a gun; and, frankly, I didn’t want to be too close to him.”

  He gave a rather nervous laugh and made a gesture to amplify his meaning.

  “I see,” the inspector said. “And then?”

  “Mr. Hay went into the wood on the left,” Laxford continued. “Just about that fallen tree, wasn’t it, Hay?”

  “About there,” Hay grunted in confirmation.

  “I was next in the line,” Laxford went on. “I got into the wood just about where you see that withered branch. That’s right, isn’t it, Stoke?”

  The gardener gave a confirmatory nod and would evidently have spoken if the inspector had not checked him with a frown.

  “The two Brandons turned off towards the right. I didn’t see them enter the wood, but I believe they went in together. You saw them, Stoke?”

  “I did, sir. They went in about fifty yards to the right of you. Then I lost sight of ’em among the trees.”

  The inspector ran his eye over the end of the plantation, gauging the distances of the landmarks.

  “So they went in about a hundred yards west of the line of the ha-ha; you got in about fifty yards to the west of them; and Mr. Hay was another fifty yards from you, on the far left? I see.”

  “When I got into the Plantation,” Laxford went on,” I waited for some minutes, to give the Brandons time to get into position. Then I heard a shot, on my right. I guessed, from the sound, that young Mr. Brandon had fired. I took it that he must have begun to walk up the line of the ha-ha; so I moved forward myself. If you come with me, I think I can show you where I went.”

  He led them into the Plantation.

  “Here’s where I waited. Then I heard the shot and I began to walk forward, this way. Almost at the start, I flushed two rabbits and managed to bring them both down. That was just here, beside this little pool.”

  He pointed out the spot.

  “Then it struck me that we ought to have brought the keeper with us. To carry the dead rabbits, you see. One can’t carry a couple of rabbits and use a gun. It was a question of either leaving the rabbits and going on shooting, or else picking them up and not shooting any more. You see the position?”

  “I see,” the inspector assured him.

  “I’m not very keen on shooting,” Laxford conferred. “So it occurred to me that the best thing to do would be to carry the rabbits. Then it struck me that, since I wasn’t going to shoot any more, I might as well carry for the rest of the party. I shouted to young Mr. Brandon and told him I’d carry anything he and his brother got. He called back that his brother had gone across the Carron, so it was no use bothering about him. You can’t cross the stream anywhere between the stepping-stones and the footbridge up near the house. Then I called to Mr. Hay, on my left, that I’d pick up anything he shot. That’s correct, isn’t it, Hay?”

  “Right,” said Hay laconically.

  “Then it struck me,” Laxford continued, “that if I was going to carry all they got, I might have my hands full. I’d no further use for my gun, so there was no point in hampering myself with it. I leaned it up against that big tree over yonder at the side of the pool in as conspicuous a place as I could find. I meant to tell Stoke to pick up the gun on his way back to his cottage, later on.

  “Did you reload, after your two shots?” the inspector inquired casually.

  Laxford seemed confused by the unexpected question.

  “Did I? I can’t quite remember doing it, but I suppose I did. One does these things mechanically, you see. It’s hard to recall whether one did or not. I suppose I must have slipped in fresh cartridges. Now I think of it . . .”

  He seemed to make an effort to jog his memory, but with no apparent success.

  “No, I can’t say, really,” he concluded, looking rather flustered.

  The inspector seemed to attach no great importance to the detail.

  “And then?” he queried.

  “Then I heard a couple of shots from the ha-ha side. Young Mr. Brandon had missed his first shot, I forgot to tell you. When I heard these two shots, I walked over to the ha-ha. If you’ll come with me, I’ll show you where I went.”

  He led them through the wood till they reached the line of the sunk fence.

  “When I got here,” he continued, “young Mr. Brandon had gone on farther. He pointed to where the two dead rabbits were, and I picked them up. That was the last I saw of him alive.”

  The inspector examined the ground at the top of the sunk fence, where the stones cropped up here and there through the turf.

  “Not easy walking,” he commented. “When you saw him, was he going carefully?”

  “No,” Laxton said. “He was just taking it at his normal pace without any particular caution. Like this.”

  He illustrated by walking along the top of the ha-ha; but before he made a dozen steps his foot slipped on a projecting stone and he had a narrow escape of losing his balance. Hay guffawed at the mishap.

  “Easy to come a cropper there, Laxford,” he commented.

  The inspector seemed impressed by the accident.

  “Narrow shave of a nasty fall, sir. One can see how the accident could happen. By the way, how was he carrying his gun?”

  Laxford thought for a moment.

  “I expect he usually carried it at the ‘ready’; but when I saw him last he had it at the trail in his right hand and he was fending off a branch—there—with his left hand. You see the branch grows over the line of the ha-ha. He had to push it aside to get past.”

  The inspector seemed satisfied.

  “And after that?”

  “I walked back—follow me, please—towards the middle of the plantation. As I was going, I think I heard a shot from over the stream; but I wasn’t paying much attention to shots from that quarter.”

  After a few moments, Laxford halted again.

  “Just about here, I heard Mr. Hay’s gun. He’d hit a rabbit, so I crossed over—along here—to pick it up for him. . . . This is the place, I think, Hay?”
/>   “Hereabouts,” Hay confirmed. “Not that it matters a damn.”

  “Mr. Hay and I walked on together—along this line—till we came to a fallen tree. . . . Here it is. Then we heard a shot to the east; so I left him and hurried off to pick up the game. I took this direction. The undergrowth is pretty thick here and I had to go roundabout at times. . . . I’m not quite sure of my exact route, but it was roughly on the line we’re taking. . . . When I got to somewhere about here,” he paused at the spot, “I called out to young Mr. Brandon to know if he’d hit anything. I got no answer; and I took it that my voice hadn’t reached him. He was up-wind and it was very gusty. I went on—this way, please—and as I was going I heard another shot. I called again and got no reply. That surprised me. We’re quite near the line of the ha-ha, as you can see, though it’s quite out of sight behind all that undergrowth. I went forward, along here, and came out on the edge of a little clearing. Here it is. There was no sign of young Mr. Brandon. I went forward to the edge of the ha-ha, to look along it; and then, here, just below me, I saw him lying at the foot of the wall.”

  The inspector joined him at the top of the dike.

  “Just there?” he asked.

  “Just there,” Laxford confirmed, pointing to the exact spot.

  The inspector examined the place for a moment or two, but did not seem to think it worth his while to jump down to the lower ground.

  “And then?” he prompted.

  “I jumped down and found he was quite dead, so far as I could see. His gun was beside him. I climbed up again and went back into the wood, calling to Mr. Hay, who hurried across to join me. I told him what had happened, and we both came back here. I had no notion where Mr. James Brandon might be. That screen of bushes across the stream hides everything from here. Then I called, on the off-chance that he was within hearing. He was farther up the stream; but I managed to make him hear; and when he came out on the bank beyond the bushes I directed him to go round by the bridge, up above. Meanwhile Mr. Hay and I lifted Mr. Brandon’s body on to the grass at the top of the ha-ha. Did you lift his gun, Hay?”