Marsland looked very hard at Crewe as he recalled the greeting Miss Maynard had given him when she opened the door to his knock.
“I did not think of that,” he said.
“That supposition gives us a probable explanation why the blood-stains were wiped off the stairs, and not off the floor of the room in which you saw the body. The murderer was expecting a visitor by appointment. The suspicions of this visitor would be aroused if he saw blood-stains on the stairs. But as he was not expected to go upstairs the murderer did not trouble about the stains in the room. This is another indication of pressure of time.”
Marsland felt that Crewe was on the track of discovering Miss Maynard’s presence at the farm. He began to see in the light of Crewe’s deductions that her chief object in having asked him to keep her name out of the affair was to shelter some one else. But having given his word he must keep it and stand by the consequences.
CHAPTER VII
Detective Gillett made a journey to London in order to visit Somerset House and inspect the will left by James Lumsden, the grandfather of the man who had been murdered. He had been able to ascertain, from local sources of information at Ashlingsea, some of the details of the will, but as an experienced detective he knew the value of exact details obtained from official sources.
His perusal of the will showed him that Cliff Farm and all the testator’s investments and personal property had been left to his nephew Frank, with the exception of legacies to three old servants who had been in his employ for over a quarter of a century.
Gillett had ascertained from previous inquiries that Frank was at the front in France when his grandfather died. He had been brought up at the farm, but as his inclinations did not tend to a farming life, he had left his grandfather, and gone to London, where he had earned a livelihood as a clerk prior to enlisting in the Army. According to Ashlingsea gossip, old James Lumsden had been a man of considerable wealth: though local estimates of his fortune varied considerably, ranging from £20,000 to five times that amount. Gillett’s inspection of the terms of the will convinced him that the lower amount was somewhat nearer the correct figure; and an interview with Messrs. Holding, Thomas & Holding, the London solicitors who had drawn up the will, supported this view.
It was the elder Mr. Holding, the senior partner of the firm, who had transacted Mr. Lumsden’s business and had taken the instructions for drawing up the will. The document had been executed seven years ago. Mr. Holden, senior, a white haired old gentleman whose benign appearance seemed out of harmony with the soulless profession he adorned, told Gillett that Mr. Lumsden had consulted him on several occasions about business matters, but the old man was extremely intelligent and capable, and kept his affairs so entirely in his own hands that he was not a very profitable client.