The Shrieking Pit

by Arthur J. Rees

"For the motive of concealment, and to retard discovery. But for the footprints it would probably have given him several days—perhaps weeks—in which to make good his escape."

"Did he not run a bigger risk of discovery by carrying the body downstairs in an occupied house, and across several hundred yards of open land close to the village?"

"Not in a remote spot like this. They keep early hours in this part of the country. I guarantee if you walked through the village now you wouldn't see a soul stirring."

"Ronald was not likely to know that. Next, how did Ronald, a stranger to the place, know the locality of this pit so accurately as to be able to walk straight to it?"

"Easily. He might have approached the inn from that side, and passed it on his way. And nothing is more likely than Mr. Glenthorpe would tell him about the pit in the course of his conversation about the excavations. There is also the possibility that Ronald knew of the existence of the pit from a previous visit to this part of the country."

"My next point is that Ronald was put to sleep in what he imagined was an upstairs bedroom. How did he discover that his bedroom, and the bedroom of Mr. Glenthorpe's adjoining, opened on to a hillside which enabled him to get out of one bedroom and into the other?"

"Again, Mr. Glenthorpe probably told him—he seems to have been a garrulous old chap, according to all accounts. Or Ronald may have looked out of his window when he was retiring, and seen it for himself. I always look out of a bedroom window, and particularly if it is a strange bedroom, before getting into bed."

"These are matters of opinion, and, though your explanations are possible ones, I do not agree with you. We are looking at this case from entirely different points of view. You believe that Ronald committed the murder, and you are allowing that belief to colour everything connected with the case. I am looking at this murder as a mystery which has not yet been solved, and, without excluding the possibility that Ronald is the murderer, I am not going, because of the circumstantial evidence against him, to accept his guilt as a foregone conclusion until I have carefully examined and tested all the facts for and against that theory.

"The one outstanding probability is that Mr. Glenthorpe was murdered for his money. Now, excluding for the time being the circumstantial evidence against Ronald—though without losing sight of it—the next point that arises is was he murdered by somebody in the inn or by somebody from outside—say, for example, one of the villagers employed on his excavation works. The waiter's story of the missing knife suggests the former theory, but I do not regard that evidence as incontrovertible. The knife might have been stolen from the kitchen by a man who had been drinking at the bar; indeed, until we have recovered the weapon it is not even established that this was the knife with which the murder was committed. It might have been some other knife. We must not take the waiter's story for granted until we have recovered the knife, and not necessarily then. But that story, as it stands, inclines to support the theory that the murder was committed by somebody in the inn. On the other hand, the theory of an outside murderer lends itself to a very plausible reconstruction of the crime. Suppose, for example, the murder had been committed by one of Mr. Glenthorpe's workmen, actuated by the dual motives of revenge and robbery, or by either motive. Apparently the whole village knew of Mr. Glenthorpe's intention to draw this money which was in his possession when he was murdered—he seems to have been a man who talked very freely of his private affairs—and the amount, £300, would be a fortune to an agricultural labourer or a fisherman. Such a man would know all about the bedroom windows on that side of the inn opening on to the hillside, and would naturally choose that means of entry to commit the crime. And, if he were a labourer in Mr. Glenthorpe's employ, the thought of concealing the body by casting it into the pit would probably occur to him."

"I do not think there is much in that theory," said Superintendent Galloway thoughtfully. "Still, it is worth putting to the test. I'll inquire in the morning if any of the villagers are suspicious characters, or whether any of Glenthorpe's men had a grudge against him."