Colonel Thorndyke's Secret

by G. A. Henty

“This is terrible news, my dear Mark,” he said, as he leaped from his gig and wrung Mark's hand—“terrible. I don't know when I have had such a shock; he was a noble fellow in all respects, a warm friend, an excellent magistrate, a kind landlord, good all round. I can scarcely believe it yet. A burglar, of course. I suppose he entered the house for the purpose of robbery, when your father awoke and jumped out of bed, there was a tussle, and the scoundrel killed him; at least, that is what I gather from the story that the groom told me.”

“That is near it, Sir Charles, but I firmly believe that robbery was not the object, but murder; for murder was attempted yesterday evening,” and he informed the magistrate of the shot fired through the window.

“Bless me, you don't say so!” the magistrate exclaimed. “That alters the case altogether, and certainly would seem to make the act one of premeditated murder; and yet, surely, the Squire could not have had an enemy. Some of the men whom we have sentenced may have felt a grudge against him, but surely not sufficient to lead them to a crime like this.”

“I will talk of it with you afterwards, Sir Charles. I have the very strongest suspicions, although no absolute proofs. Now, will you first come upstairs? Doctor Holloway is here and Simeox, but no one has entered the room since I left it; I thought it better that it should be left undisturbed until you came.”

“Quite so; we will go up at once.”

An examination of the room showed nothing whatever that would afford the slightest clew. The Squire's watch was still in the watch pocket at the head of the bed, his purse was on a small table beside him; apparently nothing had been touched in the room.

“If robbery was the object,” Sir Charles said gravely, “it has evidently not been carried out, and it is probable that Mr. Thorndyke was partly woke by the opening of the window, and that he was not thoroughly aroused until the man was close to his bed; then he leapt out and seized him. Probably the stab was, as Dr. Holloway assures us, instantly fatal, and he may have fallen so heavily that the man, fearing that the house would be alarmed at the sound, at once fled, without even waiting to snatch up the purse. The whole thing is so clear that it is scarcely necessary to ask any further questions. Of course, there must be an inquest tomorrow. I should like when I go down to ask the gardener where he left the ladder yesterday. Have you examined the ground for footmarks?”

“Yes, Sir Charles, but you see it was a pretty hard frost last night, and I cannot find any marks at all. The ground must have been like iron about the time when the ladder was placed there.”

The gardener, on being called in, said that the ladder was always hung up outside the shed at the back of the house; there was a chain round it, and he had found that morning that one of the links had been filed through.

“The Squire was most particular about its being locked, as Mr. Mark knows, so that it could not be used by any ill disposed chaps who might come along at night. The key of the padlock was always hung on a nail round the other side of the shed. The Squire knew of it, and so did Mr. Mark and me; so that while it was out of the way of the eyes of a thief, any of us could run and get it and undo the padlock in a minute in case of fire or anything of that sort. I have not used the ladder, maybe, for a fortnight, but I know that it was hanging in its place yesterday afternoon.”