“My name is Dennis Holt and I live at Stone Hollow,” I replied, amused and not at all offended at the old lady’s brusqueness.
“Oh, yes, I know, nephew to Mrs. Mackaluce. I remember hearing about you from Dr. Crawford. Well, thanks for your help. Now, Kitty, come along. Good bye, Mr. Holt.”
“Can you find your way back all right?” I said, turning to Nora Lepley, who had stood silent during the conversation and whom the old lady had not thanked.
“But I live here,” she replied, with a quick laugh, “and I don’t always come home by daylight. Good night, Mr. Holt.”
Old Lady Clevedon had amused me hugely. She was evidently what the country people would call “a character” whose acquaintance might be worth cultivating. But it was the pretty niece who attracted all my attention, and I made up my mind that I must become interested in the tragedy at White Towers. There might be no connection between that and Miss Kitty Clevedon’s midnight wanderings. The latter might be susceptible of the most innocent explanation. But it was in that case a queer coincidence, and though I am far from denying that coincidences play a large and weighty part in human affairs, I instinctively distrust them. This might be one, but until I could prove the affirmative I preferred to admit a possible negative, or at all events to keep an open mind.
CHAPTER IV
THE SILVER-HEADED HATPIN
The Midlington evening papers reached Cartordale about seven o’clock. To accomplish that they had to be printed somewhere about 3.30 p.m., and accordingly were rather early editions. Nevertheless, the one I saw contained a very good account of the Clevedon tragedy, though, as I could well see, reading between the lines, one which the police had carefully supervised. The press and the police work in very much closer accord than most people realise. They help one another, and the wise newspaper man never gives away anything the police desire to keep secret. In return for that the press receives all sorts of information otherwise inaccessible to it. I have many thousands of newspaper cuttings, all carefully indexed, of which I make good use in the compilation of my books. Newspapers give the facts that are known with creditable accuracy, though really what remains unknown is frequently the more important. The whole story is not always told.
And the press may and often does materially assist the police. If the latter wish to publish some item broadcast, the description of some individual, particulars of a missing weapon, details that may bring further items and possibly produce an unsuspected clue, they go to the press, which very quickly and efficiently gives them all the publicity they want. They do not deliberately keep things from the press. Any such attempt defeats its own end. It is the reporter’s job to get news and he is an expert at it.
But if you tell the press all you know with a reservation as to what may not be published, the secret is safe enough. In a very long and varied experience I never knew a newspaper man to break a promise or violate a confidence. Some journals, of course, make a speciality of crime investigation on their own account, and clever enough they are at it. But even they will suppress an item of news if the police ask it, and frequently when they discover some fact unknown to the police will inquire before publishing whether it is desirable or safe. The ordinary man’s idea that the press thinks first and only of its news column is a delusion. Very often a newspaper knows a lot more than it says.
From the account in the Midlington evening paper I learnt that Sir Philip Clevedon had dined alone soon after seven o’clock. At the conclusion of dinner he retired to his study according to his usual custom. At a quarter past eight he received a visit from Miss Kitty Clevedon, who had motored over from Hapforth House, the residence of Lady Clevedon, with a message to Mrs. Halfleet, the housekeeper. Miss Clevedon left before nine o’clock, and at 11.30 Sir Philip rang for his man Tulmin and ordered a whisky-and-soda, giving also some instructions regarding a contemplated journey to London on the morrow. Tulmin went off to bed, and thereafter was a long blank from 11.30 or so until between six and seven o’clock in the morning, when Miss Nora Lepley found Sir Philip lying dead on the couch in his study with the hatpin driven through his heart. Those were the facts out of which the reporter had made several columns. But the summary is sufficient for my purpose.