The Sittaford Mystery Read Online Free PDF

Captain Trevelyan's papers. Now, Evans, what were you yourself doing from four o'clock onwards yesterday afternoon?”
    “I was at home, sir.”
    “Where s home?”
    “Just round the corner, sir, 85 Fore Street.”
    “You didn't go out at all?”
    “Not likely, sir. Why, the snow was coming down a fair treat.”
    “Yes, yes. Is there anyone who can support your statement?”
    “Beg pardon, sir.”
    “Is there anyone who knows that you were at home during that time?”
    “My wife, sir.”
    “She and you were alone in the house?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Well, well, I have no doubt that's all right. That will be all for the present, Evans.”
    The ex-sailor hesitated. He shifted from one foot to the other.
    “Anything I can do here, sir - in the way of tidying up?”
    “No - the whole place is to be left exactly as it is for the present.”
    “I see.”
    “You had better wait, though, until I have had a look round,” said Narracott, “in case there might be any question I want to ask you.”
    “Very good, sir.”
    Inspector Narracott transferred his gaze from Evans to the room.
    The interview had taken place in the dining-room. On the table an evening meal was set out. A cold tongue, pickles, a Stilton cheese and biscuits, and on a gas ring by the fire a saucepan containing soup. On the sideboard was a tantalus, a soda water siphon, and two bottles of beer. There was also an immense array of silver cups and with them - a rather incongruous item, three very new looking novels.
    Inspector Narracott examined one or two of the cups and read the inscriptions on them.
    “Bit a sportsman, Captain Trevelyan,” he observed.
    “Yes, indeed, sir,” said Evans. “Been an athlete all his life, he had.”
    Inspector Narracott read the titles of the novels. “Love Turns the Key,” “The Merry Men of Lincoln,” “Love's Prisoner.”
    “H'm,” he remarked. “The Captain's taste in literature seems somewhat incongruous.”
    “Oh! that, sir.” Evans laughed. “That's not for reading, sir. That's the prizes he won in these Railway Pictures Names Competitions. Ten solutions the Capting sent in under different names, including mine, because he said 85 Fore Street was a likely address to give a prize to! The commoner your name and address the more likely you were to get a prize in the Capting's opinion. And sure enough a prize I got - but not the 2,000 pounds, only three new novels - and the kind of novels, in my opinion, that no one would ever pay money for in a shop.”
    Narracott smiled, then again mentioning that Evans was to wait, he proceeded on his tour of inspection. There was a large kind of cupboard in one corner of the room. It was almost a small room in itself. Here, packed in unceremoniously, were two pairs of skis, a pair of sculls mounted, ten or twelve hippopotamus tusks, rods and lines and various fishing tackle including a book of flies, a bag of golf clubs, a tennis racket, an elephant's foot stuffed and mounted and a tiger skin. It was clear that, when Captain Trevelyan had let Sittaford House furnished, he had removed his most precious possessions, distrustful of female influence.
    “Funny idea - to bring all this with him,” said the Inspector. “The house was only let for a few months, wasn't it?”
    “That's right, sir.”
    “Surely these things could have been locked up at Sittaford House?”
    For the second time in the course of the interview, Evans grinned.
    “That would have been much the easiest way of doing it,” he agreed. “Not that there are many cupboards at Sittaford House. The architect and the Capting planned it together, and it takes a female to understand the value of cupboard room. Still, as you say, sir, that would have been the common-sense thing to do. Carting them down here was a job - I should say it was a job! But there, the Capting couldn't bear the idea of anyone messing around with his things. And lock things up as you will, he says, a woman will always find a way