The Ashiel mystery

by Marion Bryce

"Still on the whole, after talking to young Lord Ashiel, I felt more disposed to believe that there might be some truth in the accusation that had been made than I had previously thought likely. But on that point I reserved my opinion till I should have had an opportunity of examining the scene of the tragedy for myself. So I prevailed upon the new owner of the castle to leave me alone—which he was the more ready to do since he had urgent need to be first in examining some papers of his uncle's which were in another room—and proceeded to make a cast round the garden from which the shot had been fired, in the hope of lighting upon some trifle which had escaped the notice of Macross.

"It was when I came upon the footprints in the rose-bed which had done so much to prove the guilt of Sir David Southern in the eyes of his accusers, that I began to be certain of his innocence; and a very little examination convinced me absolutely that whoever had shot Lord Ashiel it was not his youngest nephew. For the tracks on the flower-bed left no room for doubt.

"It is true they corresponded exactly with the shooting-boots Sir David had been wearing on the day the crime was committed. I had provided myself with a pair that I was assured was exactly like those particular boots which fitted the tracks and which the police had taken away with them, and I found that there was indeed no difference, except for the matter of an extra nail or two on the soles. There was no doubt that Sir David's boots had made those impressions, but to my mind there was equally no doubt that Sir David had not been in them when they made them. For the track which was so plainly distinguishable on the soft mould of the flower-bed had certain peculiarities which I could hardly overlook.

"There was first a row of footmarks leading from the lawn to the middle of the bed; then more marks as if the wearer of the boots had moved from one position to another hard by; and finally, a track leading back again to the mossy lawn at the side. Now all this was well enough till it came to the last row of footsteps, those which led off the bed, and which had presumably been taken after the fatal shot was fired. But was it conceivable that a man who had that moment committed a cold-blooded murder should leave the scene of his crime with the same slow, deliberate footsteps with which he had approached it? Surely not.

"And yet this is what the wearer of the boots had done. The imprints, as they advanced towards the lawn, were deep and well defined from toe to heel. Not only that, but they were, if anything, closer together than those which preceded them. Now a man, running, leaves a deeper impression of his toe than he does of his heel, and his steps are much farther apart in proportion to his increase in speed. I, myself, ran from the middle of the bed, to the lawn, alongside of the footmarks of the soi-disant murderer, and though I am a short man, while Sir David's legs are reported long, I left only two footprints to his five. To me it was as certain as if I had seen it happen that the wearer of the boots trampled his way off the rose-bed as slowly as he had trampled on. Those footprints had been made by some one who was determined they should be seen, not by some one whose only thought was to get away from the place; not, in short, by a man who had that moment fired a murderous shot through the darkness. The tracks had undoubtedly been made as a blind and with the intention of diverting suspicion to the wrong man probably after the deed itself was done.

"I was satisfied, then, that the shot had not been fired from this particular part of the rose-bed, and I proceeded to search for other footprints farther down the bed. I did not feel much hope of being successful, since, if our man had had the forethought to leave so many traces of some one else's presence, it was unlikely he would have neglected to ensure that his own should be absent. And as I expected, I found none.

"But at the end of the garden, where it is bounded by the holly hedge, I came across something which puzzled me. There were two narrow depressions on the flower-bed, about an inch wide by less than a foot long. They were parallel to each other, and at right angles to the hedge, and separated by a distance of six or seven feet. Near one, which was almost in the middle of the bed, was another mark which I could not understand. It was only a few inches long and, in shape, a narrow oval. I could not at first imagine what any of them represented, and it was only quite suddenly, as I was giving it up and going away, that the truth flashed across my mind. I had been looking regretfully at the track I myself had left by the side of the hedge on my way to and from the middle of the bed.

"'What I want,' I said to myself, 'is one of those planks raised off the ground by two little supports, one at each end, that gardeners use to avoid stepping on the beds when they are going through the process of bedding out,' And even as I said it, I realized that the same idea had occurred to some one else, and that the marks I had been examining might have been made by just such a contrivance as the one I was thinking of. A short search showed me the plank itself, kept in a tool-house conveniently near the spot, and, with a rake taken from the same place, I seized the opportunity of raking out my own footmarks from the rose-bed.

"And now who could this be who had so carefully manufactured a false scent, and so cleverly avoided being himself suspected? My previous theory, that some envoy of the Nihilists had been lurking in the neighbourhood, seemed not to meet the new conditions. For how could a mere stranger have gained possession of the misleading boots, or how returned them to their proper place? And how, for that matter, could a stranger have obtained the use of Sir David's rifle, if his rifle had indeed been used?

"That brought me to consider again whether after all there was any proof that his rifle had been used by anyone. Supposing, as I saw no reason to doubt, he spoke the truth when he said that Miss Byrne had misunderstood him and that he had not cleaned the weapon since coming in from stalking, was I driven back on the theory that some one possessed a duplicate key to the case where the guns were kept? Not in the least. The shot might have been fired from a rifle that had never, at any time, been within the walls of the castle. Certainly, the bullet fitted Sir David's Mannlicher rifle, but that, as young Lord Ashiel said himself, was equally true of his own rifle, or probably of a dozen others in the neighbouring forests, since a sporting Mannlicher is a weapon in common use in the Highlands.