The Caravan Crime by Fergus Hume — Read

As the day was exceedingly warm, with a pitiless sun blazing in a sky of tropical blue, Dick Lawson had sought shelter from intolerable glare and heat under the spreading beech-tree which shadowed his disreputable caravan. Being more or less of a professional hawker, he should have been travelling along the dusty roads toward the next village. But somehow he could not tear himself away from the neighborhood in which he had met with so extraordinary an adventure. He wished to conclude it, to get to the bottom of things, to bring the culprit to justice, and thought that some clue to the truth might be discovered in the vicinity. Four-and-twenty hours had elapsed since he had stood at the door of Sarley Court, and during that time Dick had been thinking hard, so far without any result. There was no beginning and no end to his thoughts; they ran in circles, the last constantly repeating the first.

Stretched at full length under the beech, Dick smoked meditatively, and thought out a theory--a story, a possibility, concerning the happenings on that fatal night. Young Hamber had retired to bed at 8 o'clock, leaving his sister, his step-mother, and the guest in the drawing room; At 9 Randolph had gone upstairs, while the two women remained. Audrey had declared that she went to her brothers' bedroom 30 minutes later. This Dick did not believe. It was more probable that she had quarrelled with the elder woman, and had fled from the house hurriedly--as was indicated by her unsuitable attire for a night journey--to seek refuge with her uncle, Olive Bollard, at Sarley Grange, two miles distant. Randolph, coming down for the book, and Backhouse, the butler coming for final orders, had both seen Lady Hamber in the drawing room before 10 o'clock. Lawson, therefore, surmised that immediately they departed she had followed Audrey through the park into the wood. Probably it was Lady Hamber, overhearing the conversation about the sprained ankle, who had slipped the halter from the horse, so that Audrey might be prevented from travelling in the caravan to Sarley Grange. And then--here Dick's imagination gave out. Audrey was in the caravan while he was trailing the horse. Lady Hamber probably lurking up the path. But how the girl had left the caravan with her useless ankle, and how Lady Hamber had replaced her on the bed, it was impossible to say. There certainly was--as Dick conjectured--a third person involved, who had shot the elder woman, transferred her body to the caravan, and carried Audrey to her home. But who was that person? Not Sir Gerald, who was a mere wreck, and incapable of active participation. Then who else? So far Lawson's thoughts ran easily: now they came to full stop.