“No, or we should have seen him. Nor has he jumped over the wall into the lower level.”
“He would break his neck doing that,” Eustace said. “But what can have happened to him?”
“It is a mystery,” Mr Franklyn said grimly. “Another mystery to pile onto the great mountain of them already accumulated with the death of Nicholson. And the greatest of them all, in my view, is this — who on earth would want to shoot Bertram Atherton?”
7: The Cheese Store
Captain Michael Edgerton rested his hands on his hips, and uttered a curse. He had examined the whole stretch of shrubbery edging the drive, no more than thirty feet or so, and found nothing — no lurking gunman, nothing but the acrid smell of gunpowder in the air. There was a thirty foot drop over the wall behind the shrubs to the void below, and not so much as a patch of grass or bush to break a man’s fall. He could not have escaped that way. But nor could he have run down the drive, for it was wide open and clearly visible, lit by lines of torches.
“Anything?” Lucas Atherton, Bertram’s brother, had been the first to help in the search.
“Not a thing. He has vanished into thin air.”
“Let me look.”
Lucas went over the ground in the same way as Michael, slowly and methodically, shifting aside every bush to look at the ground. The light was dim with deep shadows, but the lines of torches along the drive cast enough light to show that no gunman was lurking in the shrubbery.
Eustace Atherton came up just then. “I wish I had not stayed inside with Miss Wilkes,” he said ruefully. “Another pair of eyes might have seen something.”
“It is not another pair of eyes we need, it is ideas for how the fellow managed to disappear so completely,” Michael said.
“Are you quite sure this was the place? Might the shot have come from the castle… an upper window, perhaps?” Eustace said.
Michael frowned, pondering. It was an interesting point.
Kent Atherton ran up to them bearing a torch, his usually smiling face solemn. “Any sign of him?”
“None,” Michael said, gazing up at the windows, assessing the likelihood of a shot from there. “He has vanished.”
“What about the gun?” Kent said. “Have you looked for it?”
“He would have taken it away with him, surely?” Lucas said.
Kent shook his head. “Not necessarily. He must have been in a great rush to get away, so he may have just tossed it into a bush. Lucas, hold the torch, will you, while I look?”
“No, no, let me,” Eustace said. “Those silk knee breeches will be ruined if you crawl around in the dirt out here. At least I am wearing black.”
For some time, Eustace crawled about under bushes. Eventually, he gave a yell. “There! Kent, hold the torch a little lower. Ha! Got it!”
He rose triumphantly, waving a pistol.
“Well done!” Michael said. “Hmm, a fairly nondescript affair. What do you make of it, sir?”
“Is it one of yours, Eustace?” Kent said, to general laughter.
“Oh yes, I brought one of my own pistols and then tried to shoot my own cousin with it, did I?” Eustace said, laughing too. “This is a naval pistol, I would say, but not one I recognise.”
“Perhaps it is from the castle collection?” Michael suggested. “I do not recognise it either, but you would know the collection better than I do.”
“There are none of this type in the Armoury,” Eustace said. “I know the family collection intimately, and I have never seen this pistol. Well, there is not much more we can do now. We have the weapon, but the fellow has got clean away. We should see to the ladies inside.”
“I should still like to know just how he got away,” Michael said. “Unlikely he was firing from inside the castle, since his shot would have to cross the full width of the moat and hit a narrow target in relative darkness. If Bertram Atherton was even the intended target.”
“Who else?” Eustace said. “Miss Franklyn, perhaps?”
“I will talk to everyone tomorrow,” Michael said pensively. “There must be a reason for this. It was such an audacious act, the gunman must have been desperate, yet I can see no reason for an attack on anyone here tonight.”
“Is it connected to Nicholson’s murder?” Kent said.
